TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY is Saturday, October 11, 2014

1811 - The Juliana, the first steam-powered ferryboat, was put into operation by the inventor John Stevens. The ferry went between New York City, NY, and Hoboken, NJ.

1869 - Thomas Edison filed for a patent on his first invention. The electric machine was used for counting votes for the U.S. Congress, however the Congress did not buy it.

1881 - David Henderson Houston patented the first roll film for cameras.

1899 - The Boer War began in South Africa between the British and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.

1942 - The Battle of Cape Esperance, during World War II, began in the Solomons.

1958 - Pioneer 1, a lunar probe, was launched by the U.S. The probe did not reach its destination and fell back to Earth and burned up in the atmosphere.

1968 - Apollo 7 was launched by the U.S. The first manned Apollo mission was the first in which live television broadcasts were received from orbit. Wally Schirra, Don Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham were the astronauts aboard.

1975 - Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham were married in Fayetteville, AR.

1983 - The last hand-cranked telephones in the U.S. went out of service. 1984 - American Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first female astronaut to space walk. She was aboard the space shuttle Challenger.

1994 - U.S. troops in Haiti took control of the National Palace.

1994 - Iraqi troops began moving away from the Kuwaiti border.

1994 - The Colorado Supreme Court declared that the anti-gay rights measure in the state was unconstitutional.