Today in history

1818 Illinois was admitted as the 21st state of the union.

1828 Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States.

1833 Oberlin College in Ohio opened as the first truly coeducational school of higher education in the United States.

1835 In Rhode Island, the Manufacturer Mutual Fire Insurance Company issued the first fire insurance policy.

1910 The neon lamp was displayed for the first time at the Paris Motor Show. The lamp was developed by French physicist Georges Claude.

1931 Alka Seltzer was sold for the first time.

1947 The Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” opened at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theater.

1948 The “Pumpkin Papers” came to public light. The House Un-American Activities Committee announced that former Communist spy Whittaker Chambers had produced microfilm of secret documents hidden inside a pumpkin on his Maryland farm.

1950 Paul Harvey began his national radio broadcast.

1967 The famed luxury train, “20th Century Limited,” completed its final run from New York to Chicago.

1968 The rules committee of Major League Baseball (MLB) announced that in 1969 the pitcher’s mound would be lowered from 15 to 10 inches. This was done in order to “get more batting action.”

1973 Pioneer 10 sent back the first close-up images of Jupiter. The first outer-planetary probe had been launched from Cape Canaveral, FL, on March 2, 1972.

1982 Doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center removed the respirator of Barney Clark. The retired dentist had become the world’s first recipient of a permanent artificial heart only one day before.

1983 3-foot-high concrete barriers were installed at two White House entrances.

1999 Tori Murden became the first woman to row across the Atlantic Ocean alone. It took her 81 days to reach the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.

1999 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) lost radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander as it entered Mars’ atmosphere. The spacecraft was unmanned.

2010 The Boeing X-37 returned to Earth on successfully after its first orbital mission. It launched on April 22, 2010.