Today in history

In 1755 Marie-Antoinette, queen consort to French King Louis XVI, was born in Vienna.

In 1783 Gen. George Washington delivered his farewell address to the Continental Army in New Jersey. In 1889 North Dakota and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th states.

In 1948 President Harry Truman surprised most political experts by narrowly defeating Republican challenger Thomas Dewey to win a White House term in his own right.

In 1976 former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter defeated incumbent Gerald Ford for the presidency, becoming the first president from the Deep South since the Civil War.

In 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill establishing a national holiday on the third Monday in January to honor slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1984 Velma Barfield was executed by lethal injection in Raleigh, N.C., for poisoning her boyfriend, becoming the first woman put to death in the U.S. in 22 years.

In 1994 a jury in Pensacola, Fla., convicted Paul Hill of murder for the shotgun slayings of an abortion provider and his bodyguard; Hill was executed in September 2003.

In 1996 a tentative labor contract was reached between General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers, averting a national strike. In 2000 an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts became the first residents of the international space station, christening it Alpha at the start of their four-month mission.

In 2003, in Durham, N.H., V. Gene Robinson was consecrated as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church.