Today in history

1884 On Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor, the cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid.

1914 The first electric traffic signal lights were installed in Cleveland, Ohio.

1921 The first play-by-play broadcast of a baseball game was done by Harold Arlin. KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh, PA described the action between the Pirates and Philadelphia.

1921 The cartoon “On the Road to Moscow”, by Rollin Kirby, was published in the “New York World”. It was the first cartoon to win a Pulitzer Prize.

1923 Henry Sullivan became the first American to swim across the English Channel.

1924 In the New York “Daily News” debuted the comic strip “Little Orphan Annie,” by Harold Gray.

1960 For the first time two major league baseball clubs traded managers. Detroit traded Jimmy Dykes for Cleveland’s Joe Gordon.

1963 The Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed by the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union. The treaty banned nuclear tests in space, underwater, and in the atmosphere.

1966 In New York, groundbreaking for the construction of the original World Trade Center began.

1969 The Mariner 7, a U.S. space probe, passed by Mars. Photographs and scientific data were sent back to Earth.

1974 U.S. President Nixon said that he expected to be impeached. Nixon had ordered the investigation into the Watergate break-in to halt.

1974 “Tank McNamara”, the comic strip, premiered in 75 newspapers. 198 The U.S. federal government started firing striking air traffic controllers. 1999 Mark McGwire (St. Louis Cardinals) hit his 500th career homerun. He also set a record for the fewest at-bats to hit the 500 homerun mark.

2011 NASA announced that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had captured photographic evidence of possible liquid water on Mars during warm seasons. 2011 Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a mission to Jupiter. It was the first solarpowered spacecraft to go to Jupiter.