Today In History...

In 1839 The American Statistical Association is founded in Boston, MA.

In 1898 A hurricane-force blizzard sinks ships in Boston Harbor and leaves 27 inches of snow across New England.

In 1901 The Army War College is established in Washington, DC.

In 1910 New York's Pennsylvania Station opens.

In 1939 The play "Key Largo," by Maxwell Anderson, opens in New York at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

In 1942 The French navy at Toulon sinks 38 of their own ships and submarines to keep them from falling into the hands of the Nazi Troops.

In 1945 General George C. Marshall is named special U.S. envoy to China, to try to end hostilities between the Nationalists and the Communists.

In 1951 The first rocket to intercept an airplane, White Sands, NM.

In 1953 Playwright Eugene O'Neill dies in Boston at age 65.

In 1954 Twin brothers, Ross and Norris McWhirter begin publishing the "Guinness Book of World Records."

In 1970 Pope Paul VI is wounded in the chest with a dagger during a visit to the Philippines.

In 1973 The Senate votes, 92-3, to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who resigned.

In 1975 Ross McWhirter, co-founder (with twin Norris) of the "Guinness Book of World Records" is killed by a terrorist bomb.

In 1977 The film "Saturday Night Fever" starring John Travolta premieres.

In 1978 Former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White pulls a gun inside city hall murdering Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, a gay-rights activist.

In 1978 183 people are killed when a Colombian Avianca Airlines Boeing 747 crashes near Madrid's Barajas airport.

In 1980 Soyuz T-3 is launched.

In 1982 Four men working near the bottom of an MX missile test shaft in Tullahoma, Tennessee, are killed in a flash fire.

In 1984 Artificial heart recipient William J. Schroeder, speaking for the first time since the implant, asked for a can of beer, a wish that was granted two days later.

In 1985 The Republic of Ireland gains a consultative role in Northern Ireland.

In 1985 The space shuttle Atlantis makes its second flight carrying seven.

In 1987 French hostages Jean-Louis Normandin and Roger Auque are freed by pro-Iranian captors in West Beirut, Lebanon.

In 1989 107 people are killed when a bomb blamed by police on drug traffickers destroyed a Columbian jetliner, minutes after taking off from Bogota's international airport.

In 1990 Britain's Conservatives choose John Major to succeed Margaret Thatcher as party leader, paving the way for him to become prime minister.

In 1991 The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution paving the way for the establishment of a U.N. peacekeeping operation in war-ravaged Yugoslavia.

In 1992 President-elect Clinton meets for more than an hour with former President Reagan in Los Angeles.

In 1992 Rebel forces in Venezuela try but fail to overthrow President Carlos Andres Perez for the second time in 10 months.

In 1994 U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry suggests the Bosnian government had lost the war in the Balkans, and acknowledged NATO was powerless to stop the Serbs.

In 1996 Evan C. Hunziker, an American jailed by North Korea on spy charges, is set free, ending a 3-month ordeal.

In 1999 Northern Ireland's biggest party, the Ulster Unionists, clears the way for the speedy formation of an unprecedented Protestant-Catholic administration.

In 2000 Prime Minister Jean Chretien's Liberal Party wins another term in Canada.

In 2004 After 40 years in North Korea and less than one month in a U.S. military jail near Tokyo, U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins becomes a free man.

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