TODAY IN HISTORY
1791: Congress passed a measure taxing distilled spirits; it was the first internal revenue act in U.S. history.
1845: Florida became the 27th state.
1849: The U.S. Department of the Interior was established. 1863: President Abraham Lincoln signed a measure creating the National Academy of Sciences.
1931: “The Star-Spangled Banner” became the national anthem of the United States as President Herbert Hoover signed a congressional resolution.
1943: In London’s East End, 173 people died in a crush of bodies at the Bethnal Green tube station, which was being used as a wartime air raid shelter.
1945: The Allies fully secured the Philippine capital of Manila from Japanese forces during World War II.
1960: Lucille Ball filed for divorce from her husband, Desi Arnaz, a day after they had finished filming the last episode of “The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show.”
1966: Death claimed actors William Frawley at age 79 and Alice Pearce at age 48 in Hollywood.
1969: Apollo 9 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on a mission to test the lunar module.
1974: A Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashed shortly after takeoff from Orly Airport in Paris, killing all 346 people on board.
1991: Motorist Rodney King was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in a scene captured on amateur video. Twenty-five people were killed when a United Airlines Boeing 737-200 crashed while approaching the Colorado Springs airport.
2013: Vice President Joe Biden led civil rights leaders and national political figures in a ceremonial crossing of a Selma, Ala., bridge where voting rights marchers were beaten by law enforcement officers in 1965.
2017: The Nintendo Switch, a hybrid game machine that works as both a console at home and a portable tablet on the go, made its debut.
2018: Roger Bannister, the British athlete who, while a medical student, became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, died in Oxford, England at the age of 88.
2020: In a surprise move, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by a half-point, its largest cut in more than a decade, to support the economy in the face of the spreading coronavirus.