1900 – Premature blast collapses mine tunnel killing 200 people in Scofield, Utah.
1912 – The Beverly Hills Hotel opens on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California.
1920 – Legendary slugger Babe Ruth records his first home run for the New York Yankees in 6-0 win over his former club, the Boston Red Sox.
1928 – Pitcairn Aviation — later Eastern Airlines — begins service.
1931 – Empire State Building opens in New York City. It was the world’s tallest building until the World Trade Center opened in 1970.
1939 – Batman first appears in Detective Comics #27.
1941 – US savings bonds go on sale to help finance the World War II effort.
1947 – Radar for commercial and private planes first demonstrated.
1950 – Pulitzer Prize awarded to Rodgers & Hammerstein for musical “South Pacific.”
1959 – Floyd Patterson scores 11th round knockout of Englishman Brian London in Indianapolis for his fourth World Heavyweight Boxing title defense.
1960 – Russia shoots down Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane over Sverdlovsk as it was flying through Russian airspace.
1969 – Children’s educational television host Fred Rogers testifies before Senate Subcommittee on Communications to secure funding for creation of PBS.
1976 – Empress Lilly, replica of a paddle steamer, dedicated at Walt Disney World in Florida.
1981 – Tennis player Billie Jean King acknowledges a lesbian relationship with Marily Barnett and becomes the first prominent sportswoman to come out as lesbian.
1988 – After scoring 50 points in Game 1 in the NBA Eastern Conference playoff series, Michael Jordan scores 55 points in the Chicago Bulls’ 106-101 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 2. Jordan is the first to score 50+ points in consecutive playoff games.
2000 “Gladiator,” directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix, premieres in Los Angeles. It wins Best Picture for 2001.
2009 – Same sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.
2012- Guggenheim Partners made the largest ever purchase of a sports franchise after buying the Los Angeles Dodgers for $2.1 billion.
2019 – New York City officially names a street Sesame Street at the intersection of West 63rd and Broadway in honor of the show’s 50th anniversary.
2023 – Geoffrey Hinton, “the Godfather of AI,” resigns from Google to speak out about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence in eliminating jobs and creating a world where many may “not be able to know what is true anymore.”
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