1814 – Francis Scott Key pens the poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry”, later know as “The Star Spangled Banner” while witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a ship in Baltimore harbor.
1872 – Britain pays US $15½ million for damages during Civil War.
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.
1916 – Christy Mathewson pitches & wins his final game.
1930 – Detroit Lions (as Portsmouth Spartans) play 1st NFL game, wins 13-6.
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.
1942 – US Navy Admiral Chester Mimitz presents the 1st Medal of Honor of WWII, for courage and valor beyond the call of duty during the attack on Pearl Harbor, to sailor John William Finn; ceremony took place in Pearl Harbor aboard USS Enterprise.
1956 – IBM introduces the RAMAC 305, 1st commercial computer with a hard drive that uses magnetic disk storage, weighs over a ton.
1963 – Mary Ann Fischer of Aberdeen, South Dakota, gives birth to America’s 1st surviving quintuplets, 4 girls and a boy.
1972 – “The Walton’s” TV program premieres on CBS starring Richard Thomas, Ralph Waite, Michael Learned, and Will Geer.
1975 – Milwaukee Brewer Robin Yount breaks Mel Ott’s record of playing in 242 MLB games as a teen.
1982 – 36″ snow (Red Lodge, MT)
1986 – Bo Jackson’s 1st HR-a 475- foot blast (longest at Royal Stadium)
1991 – San Diego State freshman running back Marshall Faulk rushes for NCAA record 386 yards and scores 7 touchdowns as the Aztecs best Pacific, 55-34.
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.
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 send supportive tweets.
2018 – Hurricane Florence makes landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, as a category 1 hurricane.
2021 – US records lowest level of people living in poverty since records began in 1967 (9.1% vs 11.8% in 2019), due to increase in government aid.
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