04/20/2024
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1716 – 1st lighthouse in American colonies lit (Boston Harbor)

1814 – Francis Scott Key pens the poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry, later known as “The Star-Spangled Banner” while witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a ship in Baltimore harbor.

1848 – Alexander Stewart opens 1st US department store.

1901 – Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the youngest man to serve as US President, after William McKinley finally dies after an anarchist shoots him in Buffalo.

1933 – 2 billion board feet of lumber destroyed in Tillamook Oregon fire.

1937 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt bans US ships from trading arms with China or Japan.

1939 – World’s 1st practical helicopter, the VS-300 designed by Igor Sikorsky takes (tethered) flight in Stratford, Connecticut.

1940 – US Congress passes 1st peace-time conscription bill (draft law)

1948 – Milton Berle starts his TV career on Texaco Star Theater.

1954 – Hurricane Edna (2nd of 1954) hits NYC, $50 million damage.

1955 – Herb Score sets rookie record of 235 strikeouts (en route 245)

1963 – Mary Ann Fischer of Aberdeen, South Dakota, gives birth to America’s 1st surviving quintuplets, 4 girls & a boy.

1964 – President Lyndon Johnson presents Walter Lippmann with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

1981 – Judge Wapner & People’s Court premieres on TV.

1998 – Telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom.

2001 – Historic National Prayer Service held at Washington National Cathedral for victims of the September 11 attacks. A similar service is held in Canada on Parliament Hill, the largest vigil ever held in the nation’s capital.

2011 – Elizabeth Warren announces she intends to run for the Democratic nomination for the 2012 Massachusetts Senatorial election.

2015 – 14 year old Texan Ahmed Mohamed arrested at school when home-made clock assumed to be a bomb – Mark Zuckerberg and US President Barack Obama sent supportive tweets.

2018 – Hurricane Florence makes landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, as a category 1 hurricane.

2018 – Former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort pleads guilty to conspiracy charges and agrees to cooperate with Government investigations.

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