This Day in History
In Alaska
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• In 1908, Silas M. Reid succeeded James Wickersham as U.S. District Judge for the Third Judicial Division.
• In 1918, the first movie shown at the Perseverance Mine in Juneau was a big hit as 165 watched "The Patriot" with William S. Hart.
• In 1945, Thomas Riggs, Jr. , Alaska's territorial governor from 1918 to 1921, died.
• In 1980, the one billionth barrel of Prudhoe Bay oil arrived in Valdez.
In the nation
• In 1883, the U.S. Civil Service Commission was established.
• In 1920, Prohibition began in the United States as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect, one year to the day after its ratification. (It was later repealed by the 21st Amendment.)
• In 1942, actress Carole Lombard, 33, her mother and about 20 other people were killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas while returning from a war-bond promotion tour.
• In 1957, three B-52s (accompanied at first by two spare aircraft) took off from Castle Air Force Base in California on the first non-stop, round-the-world flight by jet planes, which lasted 45 hours and 19 minutes.
• In 1964, the musical "Hello, Dolly!" opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,844 performances.
• In 1967, Alan S. Boyd was sworn in as the first U.S. secretary of transportation.
• In 1978, NASA named 35 candidates to fly on the space shuttle, including Sally K. Ride, who became America's first woman in space, and Guion S. Bluford Jr., who became America's first black astronaut in space.
• In 1988, Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder was fired as a CBS Sports commentator, one day after telling a Washington, D.C., TV station that, during the era of slavery, blacks had been bred to produce stronger offspring.
• In 1991, the White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
• In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off under extremely tight security; on board was Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon. (The mission ended in tragedy on Feb. 1, when the shuttle broke up during its return descent, killing all seven crew members.) AOL Time Warner chief executive Dick Parsons was tapped to be the media conglomerate's new chairman, succeeding Steve Case.