This Day in History

In Alaska, in the Nation and the World

In Alaska

• In 1979, a patrol plane used by Rangers at the Wrangell-St. Elias National Monument was destroyed by fire. Arson was suspected.

In the nation

• In 1789, Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first U.S. secretary of the Treasury.

• In 1857, the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place in present-day southern Utah as a 120-member Arkansas immigrant party was slaughtered by Mormon settlers.

• In 1941, Charles A. Lindbergh sparked charges of anti-Semitism with a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, in which he said "the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration" were trying to draw the United States into World War II.

• In 1958, responding to Communist China's artillery attacks on the Taiwan-held islands of Quemoy and Matsu, President Eisenhower said in a broadcast address the U.S. had to be prepared to fight to prevent a communist takeover of the islands.

• In 1974, an Eastern Airlines DC-9 crashed during a landing attempt in Charlotte, N.C., killing 72 of the people on board.

• In 1985, Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds cracked career hit number 4,192 off Eric Show of the San Diego Padres, eclipsing the record held by Ty Cobb.

• In 2001, in the single worst act of terrorism committed on U.S. soil, nearly 3,000 people died when two hijacked jetliners crashed into New York's World Trade Center, causing the twin towers to collapse; a commandeered jetliner smashed into the Pentagon; and a fourth hijacked plane crashed in western Pennsylvania.