TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1879

Thomas Edison perfected a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1797

The U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, also known as “Old Ironsides,” was christened in Boston’s harbor.

1892

Schoolchildren across the U.S. observed Columbus Day (according to the Gregorian date) by reciting, for the first time, the original version of “The Pledge of Allegiance,” written by Francis Bellamy for The Youth’s Companion.

1941

Superheroine Wonder Woman made her debut in All-Star Comics issue No. 8, published by All-American Comics, Inc. of New York.

1944

During World War II, U.S. troops captured the German city of Aachen (AH’-kuhn).

1945

Women in France were allowed to vote in parliamentary elections for the first time.

1960

Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon clashed in their fourth and final presidential debate in New York.

1966

144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a coal waste landslide engulfed a school and some 20houses in Aberfan, Wales.

1967

The Israeli destroyer INS Eilat was sunk by Egyptian missile boats near Port Said; 47 Israeli crew members were lost. Tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters began two days of demonstrations in Washington, D.C.

1971

President Richard Nixon nominated Lewis F. Powell and William H. Rehnquist to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Both nominees were confirmed.)

2001

Washington, D.C., postal worker Thomas L. Morris Jr. died of inhalation anthrax as officials began testing thousands of postal employees.

2014

North Korea abruptly freed Jeffrey Fowle, an American, nearly six months after he was arrested for leaving a Bible in a nightclub. Former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, 93, died in Washington.

2010

Eight current and former officials pleaded not guilty to looting millions of dollars from California’s modest blue-collar city of Bell. (Seven defendants ended up being convicted, and received sentences ranging from home confinement to 12 years in prison.) French police used tear gas and water cannon against rampaging youth in Lyon while the French government showed its muscle in parliament, short-circuiting tense Senate debate on a bill raising the retirement age from 60to 62.

2015

Vice President Joe Biden announced he would not be a candidate in the 2016 White House campaign, solidifying Hillary Rodham Clinton’s status as the Democratic front-runner.