On this date in ...

When the steamer Rochambeau bearing the 102nd Engineers docked in New York City, the body of Wagoner Robert Stevenson of Hamilton Street in Albany was carried ashore. He was suffering from influenza when he first boarded the ship, but his condition was not considered serious. One day out at sea, however, he took a turn for the worse and quickly died. Some of his comrades would be allowed to travel with the body to Albany to see that Stevenson would be buried with full military honors.

1969: The State Education Department paved the way for 17-year-old Julia Barash of Monroe-woodbury Central Schools in Orange County to play on the school’s tennis team this spring. She would likely become the first girl to win a place on a state high school interscholastic athletic team where boys competed. The commissioner’s ruling said it was launching a 15-month study of the effect of girls’ participation on boys’ sports teams and would allow interested districts to let girls participate in boys squads.

1994: The U.S. economy rocketed forward at a feverish 7.5 percent rate in late 1993, the most heated performance in nearly 10 years, stirring up new inflation fears and sending the stock and bond markets into a tailspin. The surge in gross domestic product, a sweeping gauge of U.S. economic activity, was even greater than the 5.9 percent rate that had been estimated initially for the October-december quarter. Few economists expected, or wanted, the 7.5 percent growth to be sustained. That kind of pace would overburden factories, prompt labor shortages and risk a major outbreak of inflation.

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/history/.