TODAY IN HISTORY
1844: A 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded as the ship was sailing on the Potomac River, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others.
1849: The California gold rush began in earnest as regular steamship service started bringing gold-seekers to San Francisco.
1911: President William Howard Taft nominated William H. Lewis to be the first Black Assistant Attorney General of the United States.
1953: Scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick announced they had discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.
1972: President Richard M. Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai issued the Shanghai Communique, which called for normalizing relations between their countries, at the conclusion of Nixon’s historic visit to China.
1975: 42 people were killed in London’s Underground when a train smashed into the end of a tunnel.
1996: Britain’s Princess Diana agreed to divorce Prince Charles. (Their 15-year marriage officially ended in August 1996; Diana died in a car crash in Paris a year after that.)
2009: Paul Harvey, the news commentator and talk-radio pioneer whose staccato style made him one of the nation’s most familiar voices, died in Phoenix at age 90.
2014: Delivering a blunt warning to Moscow, President Barack Obama expressed deep concern over reported military activity inside Ukraine by Russia and warned “there will be costs” for any intervention.
2018: Walmart announced that it would no longer sell firearms and ammunition to people younger than 21 and would remove items resembling assault-style rifles from its website. Dick’s Sporting Goods said it would stop selling assault-style rifles and ban the sale of all guns to anyone under 21.
2020: The number of countries touched by the coronavirus climbed to nearly 60. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the week 12.4 percent lower in the market’s worst weekly performance since the 2008 financial crisis.
2013: Benedict XVI became the first pope in 600 years to resign, ending an eight-year pontificate. (Benedict was succeeded the following month by Pope Francis.) Chelsea Manning, the Army private arrested in the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, pleaded guilty at Fort Meade, Md., to 10 charges involving illegal possession or distribution of classified material.