1731 – In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin opens 1st library in the North American colonies.
1789 – Bourbon Whiskey 1st distilled from corn by Elijah Craig in Bourbon, Kentucky.
1892 – Grover Cleveland (D) elected 24th US President.
1904 – Inventor and manufacturer Harvey Hubbell receives the first U.S. patent for a separable electric attachment plug.
1910 – William H. Frost receives the first U.S. patent for an electrical insect destroyer.
1917 – Telephone Company runs 1st advertisement for Army operators, receives 7,000 applicants.
1932 – Amidst the Great Depression, Democrat candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected President of the United States, defeating Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover.
1933 – FDR creates Civil Work Administration.
1942 – 1st WW II American expeditionary force lands in Africa (Gold Coast)
1950 – A US aircraft shoots down a North Korean jet in the Korean War, the first jet-to-jet dogfight in history.
1961 – Imperial Airlines Flight 201/8, a Lockheed Constellation aircraft, crashes near Richmond, Virginia, 77 die.
1966 – Edward W. Brooks (Rep-R-Mass) becomes 1st African American popularly elected to the US Senate.
1977 – Ed Koch is elected Mayor of New York (his 1st term)
1984 – Anna Fisher becomes 1st “mom” to go into orbit.
1988 – Vice President George G.H. Bush is elected President of the United States, defeating Democrat candidate Michael Dukakis.
1989 – Douglas Wilder elected 1st African American Governor of Virginia and any state since reconstruction.
1990 – 100,000 additional troops are sent to Persian Gulf.
2014 – US President Obama authorizes deployment of 1,500 additional troops to help train and advise Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State militants.
2016 – Republican Donald Trump is elected President of the United States of America, defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton, who received 2.9 million more votes.
2018 – Deadliest fire in California history, the Camp Fire starts at Plumas National Forest, spreads in Butte County destroying town of Paradise, more than 13,000 buildings and killing at least 88.
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