This Day in History
In Alaska
• In 1903, an Act of Congress provided for a submarine telegraph cable from Seattle to Sitka and Juneau.
• In 1906, Wilford B. Hoggatt took office as governor of the Territory of Alaska, appointed by President Teddy Roosevelt.
• In 1942, contract air mail service was inaugurated between Juneau and Sitka.
• In 1942, construction began on the Alaska-Canadian Highway.
• In 1959, the deepest hole ever drilled in Alaska was plugged and abandoned as a dry hole.
• In 1959, Alaska officially received the "official versions" of the pound, ounce, yard, foot, and gallon.
• In 1975, two people in New Stoyahok died of botulism after eating fermented beaver tail.
In the nation
• In 1793, the first president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, was born near Lexington, Va.
• In 1836, Texas declared its independence from Mexico.
• In 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote.
• In 1899, Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state was established.
• In 1917, Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship.
• In 1923, Time magazine debuted.
• In 1933, the motion picture "King Kong," starring Fay Wray, had its world premiere in New York.
• In 1949, an American B-50 Superfortress, the Lucky Lady Two, landed at Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first non-stop round-the-world flight.
• In 1977, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a strict code of ethics.
• In 1993, in the third day of a standoff between federal agents and Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, local radio stations broadcast a taped statement in which the group's leader, David Koresh, promised to surrender; however, the standoff continued.
In the world
• In 1939, Roman Catholic Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope; he took the name Pius XII.
• In 1943, the World War II Battle of the Bismarck Sea began.
• In 1998, The U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed Secretary General Kofi Annan's deal to open Iraq's presidential palaces to arms inspectors.
• In 2002, eleven Israelis were killed in a Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. Rioting spread as the death toll in India's religious strife reached 408.