On this date
In 1521, Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Leo X.
In 1870, groundbreaking took place for the Brooklyn Bridge.
In 1938, the March of Dimes campaign to fight polio was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who himself had been afflicted with the crippling disease.
In 1958, the first six members of the newly formed U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held their first meeting at the White House.
In 1959, Alaska became the 49th state as President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation.
In 1967, Jack Ruby, the man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, died in a Dallas hospital.
In 1977, Apple Computer was incorporated in Cupertino, Calif., by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Mike Makkula Jr.
Ten years ago: Pop star Britney Spears was hospitalized after a child custody dispute with ex-husband Kevin Federline resulted in an hours-long standoff with police.
Five years ago: Students from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., reconvened at a different building in the town of Monroe about three weeks after the massacre that had claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators.
One year ago: The national president of the NAACP and five others were arrested after staging a sit-in at the Alabama office of Sen. Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general.