This Day in History

In Alaska, in the Nation and the World

In Alaska

• In 1902, Felix Pedro discovered gold on Cleary Creek, touching off a stampede that resulted in the founding of Fairbanks.

• In 1923, President Warren G. Harding spent the day in Sitka.

• In 1954, the Bureau of Land Management held a drawing to determine the priority for assigning oil leases in the Cold Bay and Wild Bay areas of the Alaska Peninsula. Two hundred and eighty-seven applications were submitted.

• In 1968, the village of Tyonek offered to sell electric power to the city of Kenai to help them with their electricity shortage.

In the nation

• In 1587, an English colony fated to vanish under mysterious circumstances was established on Roanoke Island off North Carolina.

• In 1796, Cleveland was founded by Gen. Moses Cleaveland.

• In 1934, a man identified as bank robber John Dillinger was shot to death by federal agents outside Chicago's Biograph Theater.

• In 1937, the Senate rejected President Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court.

• In 1975, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in voting to restore the American citizenship of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

• In 1983, Samantha Smith and her parents returned home to Manchester, Maine, after completing a whirlwind tour of the Soviet Union.

• In 2003, months after her prisoner-of-war ordeal, Pfc. Jessica Lynch returned home to a hero's welcome in Elizabeth, W.Va.

In the world

• In 1933, American aviator Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world as he returned to New York's Floyd Bennett Field after traveling for 7 days, 18¾ hours.

• In 1942, the Nazis began transporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka concentration camp.

• In 1943, American forces led by Gen. George S. Patton captured Palermo, Sicily, during World War II.

• In 1946, Jewish extremists blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 90 people.