1775 – Sir James Jay invents invisible ink.
1877 – US inventor Thomas Edison demonstrates his hand-cranked phonograph for the first time.
1887 – US receives rights to Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, Hawaii.
1901 – East 182nd Second Street in Bronx is paved & opened.
1910 – The first US patent for inventing the traffic lights system is issued to Ernest Sirrine.
1923 – The Dawes Commission, chaired by the American Banker Charles Dawes, is set up to look into the German economic situation and make recommendations that the US can accept.
1929 – Richard E. Byrd sends “My calculations indicate that we have reached vicinity of South Pole” (He was wrong)
1933 – 1st state liquor stores authorized (Pennsylvania)
1942 – US Office of Price Administration rations coffee for everyone, 10 pounds a year.
1944 – John Hopkins hospital performs 1st open heart surgery.
1952 – US President-elect Dwight Eisenhower visits Korea to assess war.
1953 – American Airlines begins 1st regular commercial NY-LA air service.
1961 – Freedom Riders attacked by white mob at bus station in Mississippi.
1963 – LBJ sets up Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of JFK.
1965 – Dale Cummings does 14,118 consecutive sit-ups.
1972 – Co-founder of Atari, Nolan Bushnell releases Pong, first commercially successful video game in Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, California.
1975 – US President Gerald Ford requires states to provide free education for handicapped.
1995 – US President Bill Clinton lifts ban on exports of oil from the Alaskan North Slope; the ban was imposed after the oil embargo by Arab oil producers in 1973.
1997 – OPEC agrees to an increase in its production ceiling, OPEC has raised the ceiling to 27.5 million barrels per day for the first half of 1998.
2001 – UN Security Council unanimously approves a resolution extending the Oil-for-Food program in Iraq for another six-month period.