1887 – African American inventor Alexander Miles patents elevator.
1911 – Ty Cobb (American League) and Frank Schulte (National League) are named inaugural Major League Baseball’s Most Valuable Players. Each player was awarded a car.
1922 – First female FBI “special investigator,” Alaska P. Davidson, appointed.
1927 – New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig is named American League Most Valuable Player. Former winner Babe Ruth, who hit a Major League Baseball record 60 home runs, was not eligible.
1929 – JC Penny opens store #1252 in Milford, Delaware, making it a nationwide company with stores in all 48 states.
1932 – First political telecast, the Democratic National Committee in New York City, airs on CBS.
1944 – Allies bomb sea wall at Veere, The Netherlands.
1950 – The Federal Communications Commission issues the first license to broadcast television in color to CBS.
1962 – First appearance of a Gabor sister (Zsa Zsa) on the Merv Griffin Show.
1968 – Apollo 7 astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham made 163 orbits of the Earth in 260 hours.
1971 – Frank McGee becomes news anchor of NBC’s Today Show.
1975 – “Saturday Night Live,” created by Lorne Michaels, premieres on NBC with George Carlin as host.
1983 – Last hand cranked telephones in the United States went out of service as 440 telephone customers in Bryant Pond, Maine, were switched over to direct-dial.
1986 – United States President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev open talks at a summit in Reykjavik, Iceland.
1990 – Oil hits a record $40.42 per barrel.
1992 – First three way presidential debate between George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.
2000 – The 100th Space Shuttle mission STS-92 is flown.
2012 – An appeals court overturns a district court ruling banning the sale of Samsung.
2018 – World’s new longest flight from Singapore to Newark Airport, New Jersey takes 17 hours, 52 minutes.
2022 – Ringo Starr resumes his All-Starr Band tour with a show in Seattle, Washington after testing positive for COVID-19.