TODAY IN HISTORY
1589: Catherine de Medici of France died at age 69. 1781: A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va.
1896: An Austrian newspaper, Wiener Presse, reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as X-rays.
1914: Auto industrialist Henry Ford announced he was going to pay workers $5 for an 8-hour day, as opposed to $2.34 for a 9-hour day. (Employees still worked six days a week; the 5-day work week was instituted in 1926.)
1925: Democrat Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming took office as America’s first female governor, succeeding her late husband, William, following a special election.
1943: Educator and scientist George Washington Carver, who was born into slavery, died in Tuskegee, Ala., at about age 80.
1949: In his State of the Union, President Harry S. Truman labeled his administration the Fair Deal.
1957: President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed assistance to countries to help them resist Communist aggression in what became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.
1972: President Richard Nixon announced that he had ordered development of the space shuttle. 1975: “The Wiz,” a musical version of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” featuring an all-Black cast, opened on Broadway.
1983: President Ronald Reagan announced he was nominating Elizabeth Dole to succeed Drew Lewis as secretary of transportation; Dole became the first woman to head a Cabinet department in Reagan’s administration, and the first to head the DOT.
1998: Sonny Bono, the 1960s pop star-turned-politician, was killed when he struck a tree while skiing at the Heavenly Ski Resort on the Nevada-California state line; he was 62.
2004: Foreigners arriving at U.S. airports were photographed and had their fingerprints scanned in the start of a government effort to keep terrorists out of the country.
2010: John Boehner was elected speaker as Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives on the first day of the new Congress. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announced he was stepping down.