On this date
In 1848, James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter’s Mill in northern California, a discovery that led to the gold rush of 1849.
In 1908, the Boy Scouts movement began in England under the aegis of Robert Baden-Powell.
In 1924, the Russian city of Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) was renamed Leningrad in honor of the late revolutionary leader. (It has since been renamed St. Petersburg.)
In 1939, at least 28,000 people were killed by an earthquake that devastated the city of Chillan in Chile.
In 1961, a U.S. Air Force B-52 crashed near Goldsboro, N.C., dropping its payload of two nuclear bombs, neither of which went off; three crew members were killed.
In 1965, British statesman Winston Churchill died in London at age 90.
In 1989, confessed serial killer Theodore Bundy was executed in Florida’s electric chair.
Ten years ago: The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a nonbinding measure, 12-9, dismissing President George W. Bush’s plans for a troop buildup in Iraq as “not in the national interest” of the United States.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to deliver a populist challenge to shrink the gap between rich and poor, promising to tax the wealthy more and help jobless Americans get work and hang onto their homes.
One year ago: A magnitude-7.1 quake knocked items off shelves and walls in Alaska.