1775 – Patrick Henry proclaims “Give me liberty or give me death” in speech in favor of Virginian troops joining the Revolutionary War.
1857 – Elisha Otis installs his first elevator in the E.V. Haughwout Building at 488 Broadway in New York City.
1865 – General Sherman’s and General Cox’s troops reach Goldsboro, North Carolina during the Civil War, culminating in the final major battle of the Carolinas Campaign in Bentonville.
1896 – The Raines Law is passed by the New York State Legislature, restricting Sunday sale of alcohol to hotels.
1903 – Orville and Wilbur Wright file a patent for a flying machine, which is granted three years later.
1917 – Tornadoes kill 211 people over four days in the Midwest.
1922 – First airplane lands at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. The small aircraft was piloted by inventor Lawrence Sperry.
1936 – Physician Joseph G. Hamilton injects a leukemia patient with a sodium radioisotope in the first intravenous injection of a human with a radioisotope.
1945 – Battle of Okinawa: Navy ships bomb the Japanese island of Okinawa in preparation for the Allied invasion. It would become the largest battle of the Pacific War in World War II.
1950 – 22nd Academy Awards: “All The King’s Men,” Broderick Crawford and Olivia De Havilland win.
1957 – The Army sells the last of its homing pigeons, marking the end of their use as military messengers due to advancements in communication technology.
1962 – Wake Forest basketball coach Horace “Bones” McKinney becomes the second person to play and coach in the NCAA Final Four, having played for North Carolina in 1946, then being the head coach of Wake Forest in 1962.
1965 – NASA launches Gemini 3, the first American two-man space flight with Gus Grissom and John Young aboard.
1973 – After a 5½ year run, soap “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” ends.
1981 – Supreme Court rules states may require a doctor, with some exceptions, to notify parents when a teenage girl sought an abortion.
1990 – Former Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph Hazelwood ordered to help clean up Prince Edward Sound and pay $50,000 in restitution for 1989 oil spill.
1998 – 70th Academy Awards: “Titanic,” Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt win.
2010 – President Barack Obama signs the Affordable Care Act (ACA), nicknamed ‘Obamacare,’ expanding the availability and affordability of health care insurance.
2020 – New York confirmed as the new center of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States with 20,875 cases, including 5,707 in the last day, and 157 deaths.
2021 – First tweet by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey “just setting up my twittr” sells for $2.9 million in a digitally autographed version.
Author: Sonny Jones
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