Today in history

In 1851, Isaac Singer was granted a patent for his sewing machine.

In 1898 a peace protocol ending the Spanish-American War was signed. Also in 1898 Hawaii was annexed by the United States.

In 1944 Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., eldest son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was killed with his copilot when their explosives-laden Navy plane blew up over England.

In 1953 the Soviet Union conducted a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.

In 1960 the first balloon satellite, Echo 1, was launched by the United States from Cape Canaveral.

In 1972 the last American combat ground troops left Vietnam.

In 1977 the space shuttle Enterprise passed its first solo flight test by taking off atop a Boeing 747, separating and then touching down in California’s Mojave Desert.

In 1982 Academy Award-winning actor Henry Fonda died in Los Angeles; he was 77. In 1985 a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 crashed into a wooded mountain in central Japan, killing 520 people. (Four people survived history’s worst single-aircraft disaster.)

In 1994, in baseball’s eighth work stoppage since 1972, major league players went on strike rather than allow team owners to limit their salaries. (The post-season playoffs and World Series would be canceled for the first time since 1904.)

In 1998 Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion as restitution to Holocaust survivors to settle claims for their assets.

In 2000 the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk and its 118-man crew were lost during naval exercises in the Barents Sea. Also in 2000 actress Loretta Young died; she was 87.

In 2014 Lauren Bacall, a legendary actress known for her sultry voice, sizzling looks and love affair and marriage to actor Humphrey Bogart, died in New York; she was 89.