1895 – America’s first auto race organized by the “Chicago Times-Herald” had six car travel 55 miles from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea won with an average speed of 7 mph.
1907 – In Haverhill, Massachusetts, scrap-metal dealer Louis B. Mayer opens his first movie theater.
1908 – 154 men die in a coal mine explosion at Marianna, Pennsylvania.
1914 – World War 1: Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading.
1925 – Grand Ole Opry premieres as WSM Barn Dance on WSM radio in Nashville, Tennessee.
1929 – Richard E. Byrd makes his first South Pole flight.
1938 – Fourth Heisman Trophy Award: Davey O’Brien, Texas Christian quarterback.
1943 – American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin meet at the Tehran Conference in Iran to map out strategy during World War II.
1956 – Lee Calhoun leads an America trifecta in the men’s 110-meter hurdles at the Melbourne Olympics in an Olympic record 13.5 seconds to beat teammates Jack Davis and Joel Shankle.
1957 – “Look Homeward, Angel” play, based on the book by Thomas Wolfe and adapted by Ketti Frings and starring Anthony Perkins, premieres in New York City.
1958 – The American League announces Opening Day in 1959 will be the earliest ever, April 9.
1969 – Infielder Ted Sizemore becomes the seventh Los Angeles Dodgers player to win National League Rookie of the Year.
1975 – “As the World Turns” and “The Edge of Night,” the final two soap operas that had resisted going to pre-taped broadcasts, air their last live episodes.
1981 – Bear Bryant wins his 315th game to outdistance Amos Alonzo Stagg and becomes college football’s winningest coach.
1988 – Picasso’s “Acrobat & Harlequin” sells for $38.46 million.
1995 – Former White House press secretary James Brady suffers a heart attack.
2010 – In a classic matchup, Roger Federer wins his fifth season-ending ATP World Tour Finals tennis title with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 victory over Rafael Nadal of Spain in the final in London, England.
2019 – European parliament declares a climate emergency.
2022 – 50 million birds killed in a record-breaking outbreak of avian flu across the United States, according to the Department of Agriculture, amid similar outbreaks elsewhere around the world.
2022 – Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is “gaslighting” while Collins’ is “permacrisis.”
Author: Sonny Jones
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