Today in history

On Dec. 28, 1917, the New York Evening Mail published “A Neglected Anniversary,” a facetious essay by H.L. Mencken supposedly recounting the history of bathtubs in America, starting with the “first” one in Cincinnati in 1842. Among the spoof’s other straight-faced claims: that Millard Fillmore was the first president to have a bathtub installed in the White House. (Mencken was astonished when people took his “tissue of absurdities” seriously.)

In 1612, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei observed the planet Neptune, but mistook it for a star. (Neptune wasn’t officially discovered until 1846 by Johann Gottfried Galle.)

In 1832, John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down because of differences with President Andrew Jackson.

In 1856, the 28th president of the United States, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, was born in Staunton, Virginia.

In 1895, the Lumiere brothers, Auguste and Louis, held the first public showing of their movies in Paris.

In 1945, Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.

In 1961, the Tennessee Williams play “Night of the Iguana” opened on Broadway.

In 1973, the book “Gulag Archipelago,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s expose of the Soviet prison system, was first published in Paris.

In 1981, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American “test-tube” baby, was born in Norfolk, Virginia.

In 1987, the bodies of 14 relatives of Ronald Gene Simmons were found at his home near Dover after Simmons shot and killed two other people in Russellville. (Simmons, who never explained his motives, was executed in 1990.)

Ten years ago: President George W. Bush used a “pocket veto” to reject a sweeping defense bill because he objected to a provision that would have exposed the Iraqi government to expensive lawsuits seeking damages from the Saddam Hussein era. David Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants, reached an interim agreement with the Writers Guild allowing his talk show as well as Craig Ferguson’s to return to the air with their full writing staffs during a Hollywood writers’ strike.

Five years ago: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning Americans from adopting Russian children.

One year ago: Actress Debbie Reynolds, who lit up the screen in “Singin’ in the Rain” and other Hollywood classics, died at age 84 a day after losing her daughter, Carrie Fisher, who was 60.