Today in history

On June 26, 1870, the first completed section of the famed Boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J., was opened to the public.

In 1892 novelist Pearl Buck was born in Hillsboro, W.Va.

In 1894 the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, called a general strike in sympathy with striking Pullman workers.

In 1900 a federal commission that included Dr. Walter Reed (for whom the Washington military hospital is named) began the fight against the deadly disease yellow fever.

In 1904 actor Peter Lorre was born Laszlo Loewenstein in Rozsahegy, Hungary. In 1917 the first troops of the American Expeditionary

Force reached France in World War I.

In 1919 the first issue of the Illustrated Daily News was published in New York by Robert McCormick and Joseph Medill Patterson. (It was later renamed the New York Daily News.)

In 1925 Charlie Chaplin's comedy “The Gold Rush” premiered in Hollywood.

In 1944 the Republicans opened their national convention in Chicago with a keynote speech by California Gov. Earl Warren.

In 1945 the United Nations charter was signed in San Francisco by 50 nations.

In 1948 the Berlin airlift began in earnest as U.S., British and French planes started ferrying food and supplies to the isolated western sector of Berlin after Moscow had cut off land and water routes.

In 1959 President Dwight Eisenhower joined Queen Elizabeth II in ceremonies opening the St. Lawrence Seaway.

In 1963 President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin, where he declared: “Ich bin ein Berliner” (Iama Berliner).