On this date

1791 — Congress passed a measure taxing distilled spirits; it was the first internal revenue act in U.S. history. 1845 — Florida became the 27th state. 1849 — The U.S. Department of the Interior was established. 1918 — Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Russia signed the Treaty of BrestLitovsk, which ended Russian participation in World War I. (The treaty was rendered moot by the November 1918 armistice.) 1923 — Time magazine, founded by Briton Hadden and Henry R. Luce, made its debut. 1943 — Ground was broken for Battey General Hospital, established to care for World War II veterans, at Division Street and Redmond Road. 1943 — In London’s East End, 173 people died in a crush of bodies at the Bethnal Green tube station, which was being used as a wartime air raid shelter. 1959 — The United States launched the Pioneer 4 spacecraft, which flew by the moon. Comedian Lou Costello died in East Los Angeles three days before his 53rd birthday. 1960 — Lucille Ball filed for divorce from her husband, Desi Arnaz, a day after they had finished filming the last episode of “The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show” (“Lucy Meets the Mustache”) on Arnaz’s 43rd birthday. 1974 — A Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashed shortly after takeoff from Orly Airport in Paris, killing all 346 people on board. 1985 — Coal miners in Britain voted to end a year-long strike that proved to be the longest and most violent walkout in British history. 1991 — Motorist Rodney King was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in a scene captured on amateur video. 2002 — Voters in Switzerland approved joining the United Nations, abandoning almost 200 years of formal neutrality.

Thought for today ‘Some people stay longer in an hour than others do in a month.’ William Dean Howells American author and editor (1837-1920)