1789 – In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, Benjamin Franklin writes “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
1900 – The Baltimore Orioles, now the New York Yankees, enter baseball’s American League.
1909 – 259 miners die in a fire at St Paul Mine at Cherry, Illinois.
1920 – Hudson River freezes at Albany, New York.
1927 – New York-New Jersey Holland Tunnel, the first twin-tube underwater auto tunnel, opens.
1931 – Arkansas Democrat Hattie Caraway is appointed the first woman senator.
1942 – Minimum draft age lowered from 21 to 18 in the United States.
1951 – Lefty O’Doul’s baseball all-stars, including Joe DiMaggio and Billy Martin, lose 3-1 to Japan’s Pacific League all-star team.
1952 – False fingernails are first sold.
1964 – St. Louis Hawks’ Bob Petit becomes the first NBA player to score 20,000 points.
1966 – Comedian Flip Wilson makes his debut appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” He returns 10 times.
1970 – Vice President Spiro Agnew calls TV executives “impudent snobs.”
1977 – Final Al Capp comic strip of “Li’l Abner” published. The strip began in 1934.
1982 – Vietnam Veterans Memorial opens in Washington, D.C., featuring the names of over 58,000 United States soldiers killed or missing in the Vietnam War.
1986 – NASA launches space vehicle W-199.
1997 – Ken Griffey Jr. unanimously wins the American League Most Valuable Player award.
2001 – President George W. Bush orders that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve be filled to capacity over the next few years.
2018 – Amazon announces two new corporate outposts at Queens, New York and Arlington, Virginia.
2018 – Trial of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman begins in New York. He is charged with drug trafficking, money laundering, and murder.
2022 – Four Idaho university students stabbed and killed in their home in Moscow, Idaho. Suspect Bryan Kohberger was arrested seven weeks later.
Author: Sonny Jones
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