Today In History...

In 1801 The U.S. House of Representatives broke an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, electing Jefferson president and Burr vice president.

In 1817 A street in Baltimore became the first to be lighted with gas from America's first gas company.

In 1865, Columbia, South Carolina, burned as the Confederates moved out and Union forces moved in.

In 1876 Sardines were first canned in Eastport, Maine.

In 1897 The forerunner of the National PTA, the National Congress of Mothers, was established in Washington, DC.

In 1909 American Indian Geronimo died in prison at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma.

In 1929 Universal Air Lines showed the first in-flight movie.

In 1933 Newsweek Magazine began publication.

In 1934 King Albert of Belgium was killed while mountain climbing.

In 1935 Germany established the eight-hour workday.

In 1947 The Voice of America began broadcasting into the USSR.

In 1949 Chaim Weizmann became the first Israeli President.

In 1959 U.S. launched Vanguard II, the first weather observation satellite.

In 1964 The U.S. Supreme Court issued "the one man, one vote," ruling stating that congressional districts within states must be equal in U.S.ulation.

In 1972 President Richard Nixon departed Washington, DC, on his historic trip to China.

In 1975 $5 million of art (Cezannes, Seniors, Gauguins, van Goghs) was stolen from a museum in Milan, Italy.

In 1983 U.S. Senator Gary Hart of Colorado announced he would seek the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination.

In 1985 First, class postage increased from 20 to 22 cents.

In 1985 Murray P. Haydon, a retired autoworker, became the third person to receive a permanent artificial heart as doctors at Humana Hospital Audubon in Louisville, Kentucky, implanted the device.

In 1985 General William Westmoreland dropped a $120 million CBS libel suit.

In 1986 Johnson And Johnson, maker of Tylenol, announced it would no longer sell over-the-counter medications in capsule form, following the death of a woman who had taken a cyanide-laced capsule.

In 1988 Lt. Col William Higgins, an American officer serving with a UNtruce monitoring group in Lebanon kidnapped and later killed.

In 1990 Former President Ronald Reagan spent the second day in a Los Angeles courtroom, giving videotaped testimony about the Iran-Contra affair.

In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz traveled to Moscow to meet with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

In 1992, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to prison in Milwaukee. (Dahmer was beaten to death in prison in November 1994.)

In 1993 President Clinton addressed a joint session of Congress, asking Americans to accept one of the most significant tax increases in history as part of a plan to stimulate the economy.

In 1993 An overcrowded ferry carrying up to 1,500 people sank of Haiti; Knew knew only 256 people to survive.

In 1995 Colin Ferguson was convicted of six counts of murder in the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings. He was serving a minimum of 200 years in prison.

In 1995 Ecuador and Peru signed a peace accord to end their 3-week border war.

In 1996 World chess champion Garry Kasparov beat IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, winning a six-game match in Philadelphia. (Kasparov had lost the first game but won or tied the rest.)

In 1996 Tidal waves killed more than 100 people in Indonesia.

In 1997 Pepperdine University says that Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr would step down from the probe to take a full-time job. Four days later, Starr reversed himself.

In 2001 Former Nation of Islam official Khalid Abdul Muhammad, known for his harsh rhetoric about Jews & whites, died in Marietta, GA, at age53.

In 2002 President Bush opened a 3-nation Asian tour of Japan.

In 2003 Twenty-one people were killed in a stampede at the crowded E-Two nightclub in Chicago.

In 2003 Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler died of heatstroke at a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, hospital, less than 24 hours after complaining of dizziness during a spring training workout.

In 2004 Former Mexican president Jose Lopez Portillo died at age 83.