TODAY IN HISTORY
1790: Congress moved to Philadelphia from New York.
1865: The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified as Georgia became the 27th state to endorse it.
1907: The worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.
1917: Some 2,000 people were killed when an explosives-laden French cargo ship, the Mont Blanc, collided with the Norwegian vessel Imo at the harbor in Halifax, Nova Scotia, setting off a blast that devastated the Canadian city.
1922: The Anglo-Irish Treaty, which established the Irish Free State, came into force one year to the day after it was signed in London.
1923: A presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as Calvin Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.
1947: Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry S. Truman.
1957: America’s first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit failed as Vanguard TV3 rose about 4 feet off a Cape Canaveral launch pad before crashing and exploding.
1962: Thirty-seven coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Robena No. 3 Mine operated by U.S. Steel in Carmichaels, Pa.
1969: A free concert by The Rolling Stones at the Altamont Speedway in Alameda County, Calif., was marred by the deaths of four people, including one who was stabbed by a Hells Angel.
1973: House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew.
1989: Fourteen women were shot dead at the University of Montreal’s school of engineering by a man who then took his own life.
1998: In Venezuela, former Lt. Col. Hugo Chavez, who had staged a bloody coup attempt against the government six years earlier, was elected president.
2017: President Donald Trump declared Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital, defying warnings from the Palestinians and others around the world that he would be destroying hopes for Mideast peace.
2018: Kevin Hart announced that he had stepped down as Oscars host following an outcry over anti-gay tweets and comments he had made in the past.
2021: The Justice Department said it was ending its investigation into the 1955 lynching of the Black teenager Emmett Till, who was killed after witnesses said he whistled at a white woman in Mississippi.
2022: Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a Georgia runoff election that ensured Democrats an outright majority in the Senate for the rest of President Joe Biden’s term.