1636 – Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts founded.
1646 – First Protestant church assembly for American Indians (established in Massachusetts).
1790 – New York gives up claims to Vermont for $30,000.
1793 – Eli Whitney applies for a patent on cotton gin.
1858 – R.H. Macy & Co. opens 1st store, (6th Ave-NYC) Gross receipts $11.06.
1886 – Statute of Liberty dedicated by US President Grover Cleveland, celebrated by first confetti (ticker tape) parade in New York City.
1904 – St. Louis try a new investigation method – fingerprints.
1922 – First US coast-to-coast radio broadcast of a football game.
1929 – Dow Jones plummets 38.33 points (13%) to 260.63.
1941 – “How Green Was My Valley” based on novel by Richard Llewellyn, directed by John Ford and starring Walter Pridgeon and Maureen O’Hara premieres in New York (Best Picture 1942).
1954 – Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to Ernest Hemingway.
1965 – Gateway Arch (630′ (190m) high) completed in St. Louis, Missouri.
1971 – John Lennon and Yoko Ono record “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” in NYC.
1978 – Bobby Orr scores his last career NHL goal (vs Detroit Red Wings).
1986 – The centennial of the Statue of Liberty’s dedication is celebrated in New York Harbor.
1988 – Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen gives $10 million to University of Washington library.
1992 – Lee Jang rim predicts today would be the end of the world!
2005 – Plame affair: Lewis Libby, Vice-president Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, is indicted in the Valerie Plame case. Libby resigns the next day.
2015 – Longest ever 1st game of Baseball World Series (5h 9min), Kansas City Royals defeat New York Mets 5-4, also joint longest by innings.
2015 – World Health Organization ranks Tuberculosis alongside HIV as world’s deadliest infectious diseases, killing 1.2 million (2014).