On this date
In 1907, the U.S. Army Signal Corps established an aeronautical division, the forerunner of the U.S. Air Force.
In 1914, Germany declared war on Russia at the onset of World War I.
In 1957, the United States and Canada announced they had agreed to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).
In 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman, 25, went on an armed rampage at the University of Texas in Austin that killed 14 people, most of whom were shot by Whitman while he was perched in the clock tower of the main campus building. (Whitman, who had also killed his wife and mother hours earlier, was gunned down by police.)
In 1981, the music video channel MTV made its debut.
In 1994, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley confirmed they’d been secretly married 11 weeks earlier. (Presley filed for divorce from Jackson in January 1996, citing irreconcilable differences.)
In 2007, the eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, collapsed into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour, killing 13 people.
Ten years ago: A gunman opened fire at a gay youth center in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing two people.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama, in a televised news conference, said that the United States had “tortured” al-Qaida detainees captured after Sept. 11, adding, “We did some things that were contrary to our values.”
One year ago: The remains of dozens of presumed casualties of the Korean War were returned to U.S. soil; in an emotional ceremony in Hawaii, military members carried 55 boxes draped with American flags off two military transport planes.