Today in history

On Dec. 6, 1790, Congress New York to Philadelphia. moved from

In 1884 Army engineers completed construction of the Washington Monument.

In 1896 lyricist New York.

Ira

Gershwin

was

born

in

In 1889 Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, died in New Orleans; he was 81.

In 1920 jazz pianist Dave Brubeck was born in Concord, Calif.

In 1923 a presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Calvin Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.

In 1947 Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry S. Truman.

In 1957 America’s first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit blew up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Also in 1957 AFL-CIO members voted to expel the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

In 1969 a concert by the Rolling Stones at the Altamont Speedway in Livermore, Calif., was marred by the deaths of four people, including one who was stabbed by a Hell’s Angel.

In 1973 House minority leader Ford was sworn in as vice succeeding Spiro T. Agnew.

Gerald R. president,

In 1988 rock ’n’ roll pioneer Roy died near Nashville; he was 52.

Orbison

In 1992 thousands of Hindu extremists destroyed a mosque in India, setting off two months of Hindu-Muslim rioting that claimed at least 2,000 lives.

In 1996 stock markets around the world plunged after comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan were taken to mean that U.S. stock prices were too high. Also in 1996 former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle died in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.; he was 70.

In 1999 SabreTech, an aircraft maintenance company, was convicted of mishandling the oxygen canisters blamed for the cargo hold fire that caused the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people. (Eight of the nine counts were later thrown out on appeal.)

In 2000 actor Werner Klemperer (“Hogan’s Heroes”) died in New York; he was 80.