This Day in History

In Alaska, in the Nation and the World

In Alaska

• In 1905, the bill creating the Alaska Road Commission was signed into law by President Teddy Roosevelt.

• In 1925, the first dog team left Nenana in the relay to bring serum to combat the diphtheria outbreak in Nome.

• In 1969, the University of Alaska began its first major oceanographic expedition to the Bering Sea.

In the nation

• In 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

• In 1951, an era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flat.

• In 1967, astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft at Cape Kennedy, Fla.

• In 1981, President Ronald Reagan greeted the 52 former American hostages just released by Iran at the White House.

• In 1999, the Republican-controlled Senate blocked dismissal of the impeachment case against President Bill Clinton and then voted for new testimony from Monica Lewinsky and two other witnesses - but by margins well short of the two-thirds needed to oust the president.