TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded. In 1912,

Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, abdicated, marking the end of the Qing Dynasty. In 1914,

groundbreaking took place for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (A year later on this date, the cornerstone was laid.) In 1959,

the redesigned Lincoln penny — with an image of the Lincoln Memorial replacing two ears of wheat on the reverse side — went into circulation. In 1980,

the FBI announced that about $5,800 of the $200,000 ransom paid to hijacker “D.B. Cooper” before he parachuted from a Northwest Orient jetliner in 1971 had been found by an 8-year-old boy on a riverbank of the Columbia River in Washington state. In 1993,

in a crime that shocked and outraged Britons, two 10-year-old boys lured 2-year-old James Bulger from his mother at a shopping mall near Liverpool, England, and beat him to death. In 1999,

the Senate voted to acquit President Bill Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice. In 2008,

General Motors reported losing $38.7 billion in 2007, a record annual loss in automotive history, and offered buyouts to 74,000 hourly workers. Uno became the first beagle named Westminster’s best in show.