The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
Dec. 28, 1981
Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American “test-tube” baby, was born in Norfolk, Virginia.
ALSO ON THIS DATE 1612
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei observed the planet Neptune, but mistook it for a star.
1694
Queen Mary II of England died after more than five years of joint rule with her husband, King William III.
1832
John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down because of differences with President Andrew Jackson.
1846
Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the Union.
1908
A major earthquake followed by a tsunami devastated the Italian city of Messina, killing at least 70,000 people.
1945
Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.
1973
The book “Gulag Archipelago,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s expose of the Soviet prison system, was first published in Paris.
1987
The bodies of 14 relatives of Ronald Gene Simmons were found at his home near Dover, Arkansas, after Simmons shot and killed two other people in Russellville.
2008
A bomb-loaded SUV exploded at a military checkpoint in Afghanistan, claiming the lives of 14 school children in a heartbreaking flash captured by a U.S. security camera. The Detroit Lions completed an 0-16 season _ the NFL’s worst ever _ with a 31-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers.
2013
Iraqi troops detained a Sunni lawmaker, Ahmed al-Alwani, a prominent organizer of Sunni protests in Anbar, on terrorism charges for inciting violence against Shiites. Film, television and stage actor Joseph Ruskin, 89, died in Los Angeles.