11/08/2024
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This Day In History archive

1910 – Great Idaho Fire destroys 3 million acres of timber.

1913 – Lincoln Highway opens as 1st paved coast-to-coast highway across the United States from New York to California.

1922 – New York Yankees play their farewell home games in the Polo Grounds and win both games of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics before moving to Yankee Stadium the following season.

1932 – City-owned Independent Subway System opens in New York City.

1943 – Lieutenant General Omar Bradley arrives in London as commander in chief of the American ground forces preparing to invade France in the spring of 1944 during World War II.

1953 – Swanson sells its first “TV dinner.”

1955 – “Gunsmoke” premieres on CBS-TV starring James Arness.

1960 – Future Hall of Fame player Jerry Lucas scores 23 points as the United States wins its fifth straight men’s basketball Olympic gold medal with a 90-63 drubbing of Brazil at the Rome games.

1965 – WUND-TV channel 2 in Columbia, NC (PBS) begins broadcasting

1966 – Muhammad Ali defeats Karl Mildenberger by technical knockout in 12 rounds for the heavyweight boxing title.

1972 – American long distance runner Frank Shorter scores a famous win in the men’s marathon in 2:12:19.8 at the Munich Olympics.

1976 – Five Croatian terrorists capture a TWA plane at LaGuardia Airport in New York.

1984 – First episode of daily syndicated TV game show “Jeopardy!” with Alex Trebek as host.

1990 – Hard Rock Cafe opens in Las Vegas, Nevada.

1991 – Senate Judiciary Committee begins hearings on Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court.

1997 – Discovery buys Travel Channel for $20 million.

2000 – Indiana University fires basketball coach Bob Knight after an altercation with a student. Knight had spent 29 years at the school, compiling a 662-239 record.

2012 – 29 people are killed by floods and heavy rain in Vietnam.

2017 – Hurricane Irma makes landfall in the Florida Keys as a category 3 hurricane.

2018 – South Carolina issues mandatory evacuation order affecting one million people ahead of Hurricane Florence.

2020 – Wildfires in Oregon cause 500,000 people to evacuate, 10% of the population, with an unprecedented 900,000 acres burnt.

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