This Day in History

In Alaska and in the Nation

In Alaska

• In 1900, the Act of June 6, 1900, providing for a Civil Code for Alaska, amended the Organic Act of 1884, which established the seat of government for the District of Alaska at Juneau.

• In 1912, Mount Katmai on the Alaska Peninsula erupted, covering Kodiak and a number of smaller villages with ashes.

• In 1914, a government survey party arrived at Ship Creek to begin a survey for a railroad to Fairbanks.

• In 1947, Barbara Washburn became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount McKinley.

• In 1970, an Alaska Airlines 707 jet departed for Khabarovsk on the airline's inaugural Siberian tour.

In the nation

• In 1925, Walter Percy Chrysler founded the Chrysler Corp.

• In 1933, the first drive-in movie theater was opened by Richard Hollingshead in Camden County, N.J. (The movie shown was "Wives Beware," an Adolphe Menjou comedy previously released under the title "Two White Arms.")

• In 1934, the Securities and Exchange Commission was established.

• In 1966, black activist James Meredith was shot and wounded as he walked along a Mississippi highway to encourage black voter registration.

• In 1978, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13, a primary ballot initiative calling for major cuts in property taxes.

• In 1998, Real Quiet was denied horse racing's Triple Crown as Victory Gallop won the Belmont Stakes by a nose.

• In 2003, the government reported the U.S. unemployment rate had hit a nine-year high of 6.1 percent the previous month. Already the holder of U.S. rights to the Olympics through 2008, NBC secured the contracts for the 2010 and 2012 games for $2.2 billion.

• In 2007, police arrested a man in the abduction and death of 18-year-old Kelsey Smith, whose body was found in a Missouri park four days after she'd disappeared from a Kansas store's parking lot.