Today In History...

In 1805 Lewis and Clark first sight the Pacific Ocean.
In 1865 The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is founded.
In 1874 The Republican party is symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly.
In 1876 The first cigarette-making machine is patented.
In 1885 The transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway is completed as the last spike is driven at Craigellachie.
In 1893 Colorado grants women the right to vote.
In 1916 Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to Congress.
In 1917 Russia's Bolshevik Revolution takes place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.
In 1918 Goddard demonstrates tube-launched solid propellant rockets.
In 1918 During World War I, an erroneous report from the United Press that an armistice had been signed sets off celebrations across the country.
In 1929 The Museum of Modern Art opens in New York City.
In 1940 The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in Washington state during a windstorm sending the 2800-foot span into the Puget Sound.
In 1943 A massive 3-day snowstorm blankets Minnesota with 22 inches.
In 1944 President Franklin D. Roosevelt wins a fourth term in office, defeating Thomas E. Dewey.
In 1962 After losing the governor's race in California, Richard Nixon calls a press conference and says "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore."
In 1962 Former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt dies in New York City.
In 1963 Elston Howard is the first black man to receive the American League's Most Valuable Player Award.
In 1963 The all-star comedy film "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"premieres in Hollywood.
In 1967 Carl Stokes is elected the first black mayor of a major city in Cleveland, Ohio.
In 1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson signs a bill establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
In 1972 President Richard M. Nixon is re-elected to a second term defeating Democrat George McGovern.
In 1973 Congress over rides President Nixon's veto of the War Powers Act, which prohibits a president from waging war without Congressional approval.
In 1976 "Gone With the Wind" is shown on television for the first time.
In 1980 Voyager spacecraft pictures reveal Saturn has thousands of rings.
In 1980 Actor Steve McQueen dies at age 50.
In 1982 The Soviet Union celebrates the 65th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution with a military display in Red Square.
In 1983 A bomb explodes in the U.S. Capitol building, causing heavy damage, but no injuries.
In 1984 NASA announced that Senator Jake Garn (R-UT) would be allowed to fly aboard the space shuttle, which he did in April 1985.
In 1985 Colombian troops end a 27-hour siege of Bogota's Palace of Justice. The siege claimed the lives of 100 people, including 11 Colombian Supreme Court justices.
In 1986 Freed American hostage David Jacobsen receives a welcome home from President Reagan at the White House.
In 1987 Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg asks President Reagan to withdraw his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1989 L. Douglas Wilder wins the governor's race in Virginia, becoming the first elected black governor in U.S. history.
In 1989 David N. Dinkins is elected New York City's first black mayor.
In 1989 Richard Ramirez, convicted of California's "Night Stalker"killings, is sentenced to death.
In 1990 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warns Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that time was "running out" for a peaceful solution to the Persian Gulf crisis.
In 1991 Basketball star Magic Johnson announces he had tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
In 1991 Pro- and anti-Communist rallies take place in Moscow on the 74th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.
In 1992 Former Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek dies at age 70.
In 1995 In a Japanese courtroom, three U.S. military men admit to the ambush-rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl. (The men later received prison sentences ranging from 6 1/2 to 7 years.)
In 1996 The U.S. liquor industry votes to drop its decades-old voluntary ban on broadcast advertising.
In 1996 Thousands of Communists march through Moscow to mark the 79th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution.
In 1996 A Nigerian Boeing 727 jetliner crashes en route to Lagos, killing 142 people.
In 1996 NASA's launches the Mars Global Surveyor from Cape Canaveral on a mission to map the surface of the Red Planet.
In 1998 U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich resigns.
In 1998 77-year-old John Glenn returns to Earth aboard the space shuttle Discovery, visibly weak but elated after a 9-day mission.
In 1999 Tiger Woods becomes the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win four straight tournaments.
In 2000 Election night ends in indecision for Al Gore and George W. Bush, with Florida's electoral votes emerging as critical and unclaimed. Hillary Clinton becomes the first first lady to win public office, defeating Republican Rick Lazio for a Senate seat from New York.
In 2001 At the White House, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair confidently offer back-to-back pledges of victory on the war on terrorism.
In 2003 The defending champion U.S. baseball team fails to qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympics, losing to Mexico 2-1 in the quarterfinals.
In 2016 Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general and the epicenter of several political storms during the Clinton administration, dies at age 78.

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