Also on this date
In 1915,
America’s first official transcontinental telephone call took place as Alexander Graham Bell, who was in New York, spoke to his former assistant, Thomas Watson, who was in San Francisco, over a line set up by American Telephone & Telegraph.
In 1924,
the first Winter Olympic Games opened in Chamonix, France.
In 1945,
the World War II Battle of the Bulge ended as German forces were pushed back to their original positions.
In 1971,
Charles Manson and three women followers were convicted in Los Angeles of murder and conspiracy in the 1969 slayings of seven people, including actor Sharon Tate.
In 1981,
the 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived in the United States.
In 1993,
Sears announced that it would no longer publish its famous century-old catalog.
In 1994,
maintaining his innocence, singer Michael Jackson settled a child molestation lawsuit against him; terms were confidential, although the monetary figure was reportedly $22 million.
In 2017,
Mary Tyler Moore, who created one of TV’s first career-woman sitcom heroines in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” died at the age of 80.
In 2020,
President Donald Trump’s defense team opened its arguments at his first Senate impeachment trial, casting the effort to remove him from office as a politically motivated attempt to subvert the 2016 election.
Ten years ago:
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona returned to Congress to officially tender her resignation a year after she was shot and severely wounded in her home district.
Five years ago:
President Donald Trump moved aggressively to tighten the nation’s immigration controls, signing executive actions to jumpstart construction of his promised U.S.-Mexico border wall and cut federal grants for immigrant-protecting “sanctuary cities.”
One year ago:
House Democrats delivered the impeachment case against Donald Trump to the Senate for the start of his historic second impeachment trial even as Republican senators shunned calls to convict him over the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.