TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1756

Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria.

1880

Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

1944

During World War II, the Soviet Union announced the complete end of the deadly German siege of Leningrad, which had lasted for more than two years.

1945

During World War II, Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.

1967

Astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft.

1972

“Queen of Gospel” Mahalia Jackson, 60, died in Evergreen Park, Ill.

1973

The Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.

1981

President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, greeted the 52 former American hostages released by Iran at the White House.

1984

Singer Michael Jackson suffered serious burns to his scalp when pyrotechnics set his hair on fire during the filming of a Pepsi-cola TV commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

1998

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, on NBC’S “Today” show, charged the sexual misconduct allegations against her husband, President Bill Clinton, were the work of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

2006

Western Union delivered its last telegram.