This Day in History
In Alaska
• In 1886, gold was discovered on the Forty-Mile.
Sound off on the important issues at
• In 1910, an early morning fire destroyed several business buildings in Petersburg.
• In 1947, the first Golden North Salmon Derby was established by the Juneau Sportsmens' Association.
• In 1952, the S.S. Princess Kathleen ran aground and sank 18 miles north of Juneau, eight miles from where the Princess Sophia went down in 1918.
• In 1969, Alaska Airlines announced the acquisition of Alaska Co., a Denver-based firm with interests in 20,000 acres of federal land on the North Slope.
• In 1979, the state of Alaska ran ads costing $110,000 in 32 metropolitan newspapers nationwide urging readers to "free Alaska" and to oppose the Udall-Anderson D-2 lands bill.
In the nation
• In 1927, American television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth, 21, succeeded in transmitting the image of a line through purely electronic means with a device called an "image dissector."
• In 1963, the National Professional Football Hall of Fame was dedicated in Canton, Ohio.
• In 1977, the Panama Canal treaties, calling for the U.S. to eventually turn over control of the waterway to Panama, were signed in Washington.
• In 1979, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) made its cable TV debut.
• In 1996, rapper Tupac Shakur was shot on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later.