Today In History...

   In 1713 The city of Baltimore is founded.
   In 1737 An earthquake kills 300,000 at Calcutta, India.
   In 1776 The first naval battle of Lake Champlain is fought during the
           American Revolution.  American forces led by General Benedict
           Arnold suffered heavy losses, but managed to stall the British.
   In 1779 Polish nobleman Casimir Pulaski is killed while fighting for
           American independence during the Revolutionary War Battle of
           Savannah, Georgia.
   In 1811 The first steam-powered ferryboat, the Juliana, is put into
           operation by inventor John Stevens in New York City.
   In 1868 Thomas Edison filed for his first patent, for the Vote Recorder.
   In 1890 The Daughters of the American Revolution is founded in
           Washington, DC.
   In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to fly.
   In 1919 The first in-flight meals are served aboard a Handley Page Transport
           flight from London to Paris.
   In 1932 The first political telecast in the U.S. takes place, as the
           Democratic National Committee sponsored a program from a CBS-TV
           studio in New York.
   In 1936 The first radio quiz program, "Professor Quiz," premieres on CBS.
   In 1938 Fiberglass is patented under the name "Glass Wool."
   In 1942 The World War II Battle of Cape Esperance begins in the Solomons,
           resulting in American victory over the Japanese.
   In 1943 The New York Yankees win the World Series, defeating the St. Louis
           Cardinals in game five, 2-0.
   In 1958 Pioneer I is the first spacecraft launched by NASA. (It failed to go
           as far out as planned, fell back to Earth, and burned up in the
           atmosphere.)
   In 1962 Pope John XXIII convenes the first session of the Roman Catholic
           Church's 21st Ecumenical Council, also known as Vatican II.
   In 1968 Apollo VII, the first manned Apollo mission, is launched with Wally
           Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham.
   In 1975 The comedy-variety series "Saturday Night Live" premieres on NBC
           with George Carlin guest-hosting.
   In 1977 Soyuz 25 returns to Earth.
   In 1979 Allan McLeod Cormack and Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield are named
           co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize for medicine for their work
           in developing the CAT scan X-ray.
   In 1980 Cosmonauts Popov and Ryumin set the space endurance record at
           184 days.
   In 1983 The last hand-cranked telephones in the U.S. go out of service as
           440 telephone customers in Bryant Pond, Maine, switch to direct-dial
           service.
   In 1984 Kathy Sullivan, aboard the space shuttle Challenger, becomes the
           first American woman to walk in space.
   In 1984 Vice President George Bush and Democratic nominee Geraldine Ferraro
           meet in their only debate of the 1984 campaign.
   In 1985 Arab-American activist Alex Odeh is killed by a bomb blast in Santa
           Ana, California.
   In 1986 President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev open two days
           of talks concerning arms control and human rights in Reykjavik,
           Iceland.
   In 1987 200,000 gays march for civil rights in Washington, DC.
   In 1988 Violence subsides in Algeria, where rioting by youths had broken
           out a week earlier, prompting the government to declare a state of
           siege.
   In 1989 The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly votes to add an amendment
           to an appropriations bill restoring Medicaid funding for abortions
           in cases of rape or incest.
   In 1990 Octavio Paz is named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for
           literature, the first Mexican writer to be honored.
   In 1990 About 60,000 people rally in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in support of a
           government proposal to seize all Communist Party property without
           compensation.
   In 1991 Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, law professor Anita Hill
           accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of having sexually
           harassed her.
   In 1992 President Bush, Democrat Bill Clinton and independent candidate Ross
           Perot clash for 90 minutes in St. Louis over character and the
           economy in the first presidential debate of the 1992 campaign.
   In 1993 Yasser Arafat wins endorsement for his peace accord with Israel from
           the Palestine Central Council.
   In 1993 Army-backed toughs prevent American troops from landing In Haiti,
           as part of a UN peace mission.
   In 1994 U.S. troops take over Haiti's National Palace.
   In 1994 The Colorado Supreme Court declares the state's anti-gay rights
           measure unconstitutional.
   In 1995 Israeli troops begin their West Bank pullback and release 881 of
           1,000 Palestinian prisoners slated to be freed.
   In 1995 Americans Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland and Dutch scientist Paul
           Crutzen win the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their controversial
           work warning that certain gases were detroying Earth's ozone layer.
   In 1997 Authorities report no survivors from the overnight crash of an
           Argentine jetliner in Uruguay, which killed all 74 people on board.
   In 1998 The Pope canonizes the first Jewish-born saint of modern era: Edith
           Stein, a Catholic nun killed at Auschwitz.
   In 2000 A state judge orders the recall of as many as 1.7 million Ford cars
           and trucks in California.
   In 2002 The Senate joins the House in approving, 77-23, the use of
           America's military might against Iraq.
   In 2002 Former President Carter wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
   In 2003 Ivan A. Getting, a Cold War scientist who conceived the Global
           Positioning Satellite system, dies at age 91.

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