1841 – First wagon train arrives in California after a 5½-month, 1,730-mile journey over the Sierra Nevada from Missouri.
1879 – African American inventor Thomas Elkins patents the Refrigerating Apparatus.
1904 – First stadium built specifically for football (Harvard Stadium)
1914 – Vogue holds 1st model show (Fashion Fete in New York City.
1924 – California legalizes professional boxing. It had been illegal since 1914.
1929 – Richard E. Byrd, Laurence McKinley Gould and their polar expedition team begin a 2½-month, 1,500-mile dog-sled journey into the Queen Maud Mountains. The first exploration of the interior of Antarctica.
1939 – First air-conditioned automobile (Packard) exhibited in Chicago.
1939 – United States allows “cast & carry” arms sales during WWII.
1948 – American humorist Will Rogers commemorated on 3-cent US postage stamp.
1951 – Ryder Cup Golf, Pinehurst Resort: United States wins 9½ to 2½. Sam Snead is playing captain for US. Arthur Lacey is non-playing Great Britain skipper.
1961 – American folk singer-songwriter Bob Dylan makes his Carnegie Hall debut in New York City. Tickets priced at $2.
1973 – New Orleans Saints record first shutout victory, 13-0 against the Buffalo Bills.
1976 – First mass market free-agent reentry draft includes Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi, Don Gullett, Gene Tenace, Rollie Fingers, Don Baylor, Bobby Grich and Willie McCovey.
1979 – 500 Iranian students loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini seize the US Embassy in Tehran, taking 90 hostages for 444 days.
1980 – Republican candidate Ronald Reagan is elected President of the United States, defeating incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter by a landslide.
1988 – First NBA game at Charlotte Coliseum: Hornets lose to the Cleveland Cavaliers 133-93.
1994 – San Francisco: First conference that focuses exclusively on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web.
2001 – 53rd Emmy Awards: The West Wing, Sex and the City, James Gandolfini and Edie Falco win.
2008 – Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President of the United States, defeating Republican candidate John McCain.
2015 – Katy Perry is the highest paid musician for the year, earning $135 million, according to Forbes Magazine.
2019 – Nine members of a US-Mexican Morman family, including six children, shot and killed in an attack by a criminal gang in Northern Mexico.
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