This Day in History
In Alaska
• In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt approved the first Alaska game law.
• In 1939, the contract to pave the Alaska portion of the Haines Highway was awarded to Lytle and Green Construction.
• In 1942, the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor.
• In 1959, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced that construction would start in Unalakeet on the first high school to be operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in a native village in Alaska.
• In 1986, the Northwest Arctic Borough was incorporated, detaching 3,298 acres of territory - including the Red Dog Zinc Mine - from the North Slope Borough.
In the nation
• In 1886, President Cleveland married Frances Folsom in a White House ceremony.
• In 1897, Mark Twain, 61, was quoted by the New York Journal as saying from London that "the report of my death was an exaggeration."
• In 1924, Congress granted U.S. citizenship to all American Indians.
• In 1966, the U.S. space probe Surveyor One landed on the moon and began transmitting detailed photographs of the lunar surface.
• In 1975, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller said his commission had found no widespread pattern of illegal activities at the Central Intelligence Agency.
• In 1986, for the first time, the public could watch the proceedings of the U.S. Senate on television as a six-week experiment of televised sessions began.
• In 1997, Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder and conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing. (He was executed in June 2001.)
• In 2000, President Clinton, visiting Germany, was honored with the prestigious International Charlemagne Prize at Aachen Cathedral.
In the world
• In 1946, the Italian monarchy was abolished in favor of a republic.
• In 1953, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain was crowned in Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George VI.
• In 1979, Pope John Paul II arrived in his native Poland on the first visit by a pope to a Communist country.