Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Today in history
On Jan. 2, 1492, Spaniards seized the city of Granada from the Moors. It had been the last Arab stronghold in Spain.
In 1788 Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the Constitution.
In 1893 the post office issued the first commemorative stamps, depicting events in the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. In 1899 Secretary of State John Hay announced the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China.
In 1905 Russian forces at Port Arthur in Manchuria surrendered to the Japanese, ending the last big military engagement of the Russo-Japanese War.
In 1921 religious services were broadcast for the first time when station KDKA in Pittsburgh transmitted the Sunday service from the city’s Calvary Episcopal Church.
In 1929 the U.S. and Canada agreed on joint action to preserve Niagara Falls.
In 1935 Bruno Hauptmann went on trial in Flemington, N.J., on charges of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. (He would be found guilty and executed.) In 1942 Manila was captured by the Japanese in World War II. In 1943 after a campaign that began in early November, American and Allied forces seized the New Guinea island of Buna from the Japanese. In 1965 the New York Jets
signed University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath for a reported $400,000.
In 1974 a crowd barrier collapsed at a soccer match in Glasgow, Scotland, and 66 people were trampled to death. Also in 1974, President Richard Nixon signed a bill requiring states to limit highway speeds to a maximum of 55 mph because of the energy crisis. (In 1995, the federal speed limits were abolished.) In 1984 W. Wilson Goode was sworn in as Philadelphia’s first African-American mayor.