- 1547: Ivan the Terrible was crowned first Czar of Russia.
- 1868: A patent for a refrigerator car was granted to William Davis,
a fish dealer in Detroit.
- 1870: Virginia became the eighth state re-admitted to the United
States after the Civil War.
- 1883: The United States Civil Service Commission was established as
the Pendleton Act went into effect.
- 1909: British explorer Ernest Shackleton found the magnetic south
pole.
- 1920: The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect,
prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages.
- 1925: Leon Trotsky was dismissed as the chairman of Russian
Revolution Military Council.
- 1936: The Screen Actors Guild was incorporated, with King Vidor as
president.
- 1936: The first photo finish camera was installed at Hialeah Race
track in Hialeah, Fla.
- 1938: Benny Goodman refused to play at Carnegie Hall when black
members of his band were barred from performing.
- 1939: The comic strip "Superman" debuted.
- 1942: While returning from a war-bond promotion tour in
Indianapolis, actress Carole Lombard was killed when her plane
crashed near Las Vegas.
- 1944: Gen. Dwight Eisenhower assumed the post of Supreme Commander,
Allied Expeditionary Force in London.
- 1945: This date is generally regarded as marking the end of the
failed German Ardennes offensive, better known as the Battle of the
Bulge.
- 1957: The Cavern Club, the bar which launched the Beatles' career,
opened in Liverpool, England.
- 1964: The musical "Hello, Dolly!" starring Carol Channing, began a
run of 2,844 performances.
- 1965: "The Outer Limits" last aired on ABC.
- 1967: The first black southern sheriff since Reconstruction, former
paratrooper Lucius Amerson, was sworn in at Tuskegee, Ala.
- 1970: National Football League owners voted to split the football
league into three divisions and add two new teams: the Seattle
Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
- 1973: NBC aired the 440th and final episode of "Bonanza."
- 1974: Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle were elected to the Baseball
Hall of Fame.
- 1976: Peter Frampton released his now-platinum live album "Frampton
Comes Alive," which became the biggest-selling live album of all
time.
- 1985: "Playboy" magazine announced its 30-year tradition of stapling
centerfold models in the bellybutton and elsewhere would end.
- 1994: South Africa's Pan Africanist Congress suspended its armed
struggle against the government of President F.W. de Klerk.
- 1996: Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais,
longest-surviving reformer in the government and architect of the
world's biggest privatization program, resigned from his post.
*Happy Birthday*
----------------
- Debbie Allen, 49, actress/choreographer, "Fame"
- Sergei Bruguera, 28, tennis player
- John Carpenter, 51, film director, "Halloween"
- David Chokachi, 31, actor, "Baywatch"
- A.J. Foyt, 64, 7-time USAC/CART national champion and 4-time Indy
500 winner
- Marilyn Horne, 65, opera singer
- Katy Jurado, 72, actress, "High Noon"
- William Kennedy, 71, author
- Jack McDowell, 33, MLB pitcher
- Ronnie Milsap, 53, country singer/musician
- Kate Moss, 25, model
- Sade, 40, singer
- Richard Thompson, 48, singer/guitarist