Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1492

Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Santo Domingo.

1774

Austria became the first nation to introduce a state education system.

1790

Congress moved from New York City to the new capital in Philadelphia.

1877

Thomas Edison made the first sound recording, of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," on the phonograph he invented.

1884

Army engineers completed construction of the Washington Monument, placing the 3300-pound marble capstone atop it.

1907

In Monongah, West Virginia 361 people were killed in America's worst mine disaster.

1917

The Bolsheviks imprisoned Czar Nicholas II and his family in Tobolsk.

1921

The Irish Free State, composing four-fifths of Ireland, was declared part of an historic peace agreement with Great Britain.

1923

A presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.

1947

Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Truman.

1948

The "Pumpkin Papers" were found on the Maryland farm of Whittaker Chambers and became evidence that State Department employee Alger Hiss was spying for the Soviet Union.

1957

America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit blew up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

1957

AFL-CIO members voted to expel the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The Teamsters were readmitted in 1987.

1969

A Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway in Livermore, Calif., was marred by the deaths of four people, including one who was stabbed by a Hell's Angel.

1973

House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew.

1978

The people of Spain are voting in a national referendum to endorse a new constitution which could end years of dictatorship.

1982

A bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army exploded in a pub in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, killing 11 soldiers and six civilians.

1983

Surgeons have successfully completed the first heart and lung transplant operation to be performed in Britain.

1989

Fourteen women were shot to death at the University of Montreal's school of engineering by a man who then took his own life.

1992

A 200,000-strong crowd of Hindu militants tears apart a mosque in the north Indian town of Ayodhya in a frenzy of inter-communal violence.

1994

Orange County, Calif., filed for bankruptcy protection due to investment losses of about $2 billion.

1998

In Venezuela, former Lt. Col. Hugo Chavez, who staged a bloody coup attempt against the government six years earlier, was elected president.

1998

Endeavour's astronauts connected the first two building blocks of the International Space Station in the shuttle cargo bay.

1999

SabreTech, an aircraft maintenance company, was convicted of mishandling the oxygen canisters blamed for the cargo hold fire that caused the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people.

2001

The name of the Canadian province of Newfoundland was officially changed to Newfoundland and Labrador.

1421

Henry VI, the youngest King of England to accede to the throne.

1896

Ira Gershwin, American musician, lyricist.

1920

Dave Brubeck, American jazz musician.

1889

Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, died in New Orleans.

1988

Rock 'n' roll pioneer Roy Orbison died near Nashville, Tenn., at age 52.

1993

Don Ameche, American television and film actor.