Today in History

Today in History

1776 – Members of the Continental Congress began adding their signatures to the Declaration of Independence.

1791 – Samuel Briggs and his son Samuel Briggs, Jr. received a joint patent for their nail-making machine. They were the first father-son pair to receive a patent.

1824 – In New York City, Fifth Avenue was opened.

1858 – In Boston and New York City the first mailboxes were installed along streets.

1861 – The United States Congress passed the first income tax. The revenues were intended for the war effort against the South. The tax was never enacted.

1887 – Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire.

1892 – Charles A. Wheeler patented the first escalator.

1921 – Eight White Sox players were acquitted of throwing the 1919 World Series.

1926 – John Barrymore and Mary Astor starred in the first showing of the Vitaphone System. The system was the combining of picture and sound for movies.

1938 – Bright yellow baseballs were used in a major league baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals. It was hoped that the balls would be easier to see.

1939 – Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging the U.S. to have an atomic weapons research program.

1939 – U.S. President Roosevelt signed the Hatch Act. The act prohibited civil service employees from taking an active part in political campaigns.

1943 – The U.S. Navy patrol torpedo boat, PT-109, sank after being attacked by a Japanese destroyer. The boat was under the command of Lt. John F. Kennedy.

1945 – The Allied conference at Potsdam was concluded.

1964 – The Pentagon reported the first of two North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.

1983 – U.S. House of Representatives approved a law that designated the third Monday of January would be a federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The law was signed by President Reagon on November

2.

1987 – 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' was rereleased. The film was 50 years old at the time of its rerelease.

1990 – Iraq invaded the oil-rich country of Kuwait. Iraq claimed that Kuwait had driven down oil prices by exceeding production quotas set by OPEC.

1995 – China ordered the expulsion of two U.S. Air Force officers. The two were said to have been caught spying on military sights.

Born

1754 Pierre Charles L’Enfant, French engineer who designed the layout of Washington, D.C.

1820 John Tyndall, British physicist and the first scientist to show why the sky is blue.

1865 Irving Babbitt, scholar and founder of the modern humanistic movement.

1924 James Baldwin, writer whose works include Go Tell it on the Mountain and Notes of a Native Son.

1932 Peter O’Toole, Irish actor.

1942 Isabel Allende, author of The House of the Spirits.

1949 James Fallows, writer and editor of U.S. News and World Report.

History