This Day in History

In Alaska, in the Nation and the World

In Alaska

• In 1939, the roundhouse shops of the White Pass Railroad burned at Skagway.

• In 1940, plans to construct Elmendorf Air Force Base at Anchorage were announced in Washington, D.C.

• In 1979, 70 mph winds and near-zero degree temperatures ravaged Anchorage.

In the nation

• In 1870, women in the Utah Territory gained the right to vote. (However, that right was taken away in 1887.)

• In 1908, the first round-the-world automobile race began in New York. (It ended in Paris the following July with the drivers of the American car, a Thomas Flyer, declared the winners over teams from Germany and Italy.)

• In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded.

• In 1915, the cornerstone for the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington, D.C., a year to the day after groundbreaking.

• In 1940, the radio play "The Adventures of Superman" debuted with Bud Collyer as the Man of Steel.

• In 1973, Operation Homecoming began as the first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam conflict took place.

• In 1999, the Senate acquitted President Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice.

• In 2007, teen gunman Sulejman Talovic shot nine people, killing five, at a Salt Lake City mall before he was shot and killed by police.