On this date

1793 — The first (and third) president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, was born near Lexington, Virginia. 1836 — The Republic of Texas formally declared its independence from Mexico. 1867 — Howard University, a historically black school of higher learning in Washington, D.C., was founded. Congress passed, over President Andrew Johnson’s veto, the first of four Reconstruction Acts. 1877 — Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote. 1917 — Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship as President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act. 1933 — The motion picture “King Kong” had its world premiere at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and the Roxy. 1939 — The Massachusetts legislature voted to ratify the Bill of Rights, 147 years after the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution had gone into effect. (Georgia and Connecticut soon followed.) 1958 — A multinational expedition led by British explorer Vivian Fuchs completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica by way of the South Pole in 99 days. 1965 — The movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music,” starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, had its world premiere in New York. 1978 — The remains of comedian Charles Chaplin were stolen by extortionists from his grave in Cosier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. (The body was recovered near Lake Geneva 11 weeks later.) 1989 — Representatives from the 12 European Community nations agreed to ban all production of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), the synthetic compounds blamed for destroying the Earth’s ozone layer, by the end of the 20th century. 1995 — The Internet search engine website Yahoo! was incorporated by founders Jerry Yang and David Filo.