On this date in ...

The Albany Boat Corporation built a private motor boat for President Woodrow Wilson at its Watervliet plant and delivered the craft to the chief executive the previous July, the company was finally able to reveal. Known as the president’s “fair weather boat,” it was the first model of its kind, and was outfitted with mahogany woodwork and furniture, a white enameled roof and green upholstery.

1969: It had been six-and-a-half years since Albany first announced plans to redevelop Arbor Hill and promised a modern, racially integrated community. In 1962, a $10 million project had been announced to build housing for more than 1,000 families on the site — high rise and garden apartments, row houses and town houses. In the intervening years, about 300 families had been moved from Arbor Hill, more than 3,000 families displaced for the Mall and hundreds more for highway and other projects. No housing had risen as yet for these families at Arbor Hill. 1994: Horse racing fans whose offsite wagers never made it to the track were owed $1.4 million — including $340,000 due to Capital Region bettors — from off-track betting corporations under a ruling by an appellate court. The Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court said that the Schenectady-based Capital District Regional Off-track Betting Corp. and other litigants waited too long to challenge a state regulation. The effect of the ruling, unless it was successfully appealed, was that the money in so-called “missed pools” had to be added to a future winnings pool and, ultimately, refunded to bettors.

Want to read more about the Capital Region’s past? Have any memories or thoughts about how our history relates to today’s events? See http:// blog. timesunion.com/ histor y/