ON THIS DATE
In 1693, a charter was granted for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg in the Virginia Colony.
In 1862, the Civil War Battle of Roanoke Island, North Carolina, ended in victory for Union forces led by Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside.
In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War, a conflict over control of Manchuria and Korea, began as Japanese forces attacked Port Arthur.
In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.
In 1922, President Warren G. Harding had a radio installed in the White House.
In 1924, the first execution by gas in the United States took place at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City as Gee Jon, a Chinese immigrant convicted of murder, was put to death.
In 1952, Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed her accession to the British throne following the death of her father, King George VI.
In 1965, Eastern Air Lines Flight 663, a DC-7, crashed shortly after takeoff from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport; all 84 people on board were killed. The Supremes’record“Stop! In the Name of Love!”was released by Motown.
In 1968, three college students were killed in a confrontation between demonstrators and highway patrolmen at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg in the wake of protests over a whites-only bowling alley. The sciencefiction film “Planet of the Apes,” starring Charlton Heston, had its world premiere in New York (it went into general release the following April.) In 1989, 144 people were killed when an Americanchartered Boeing 707 filled with Italian tourists slammed into a fog-covered mountain in the Azores.
In 1992, the XVI Olympic Winter Games opened in Albertville, France.
In 1993, General Motors sued NBC, alleging that “Dateline NBC” had rigged two car-truck crashes to show that 1973-to-87 GM pickups were prone to fires in side impact crashes. (NBC settled the lawsuit the following day and apologized for its “unscientific demonstration.”)
Ten years ago: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss won five Grammys, including album of the year, for“Raising Sand.” R&B singer Chris Brown was arrested on suspicion of making a criminal threat (he was later sentenced to five years of probation for beating his longtime girlfriend, singer Rihanna).
Five years ago: In an assertion of same-sex marriage rights, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that samesex spouses could not be compelled to testify against each other, should be eligible to file for bankruptcy jointly and were entitled to the same rights and privileges as federal prison inmates in opposite-sex marriages.
One year ago: The federal government stumbled into a shutdown that would end by morning, its second in less than a month, as rogue Senate Republicans blocked a speedy vote on a massive, bipartisan, budget-busting spending deal.