This Day in History

In Alaska

• Photos

• In 1882, construction started on the first building on the campus of the Sheldon Jackson School in Sitka.

• In 1900, a storm in Nome caused a million dollars in property losses along the waterfront.

• In 1940, artist Sydney Laurence announced he was going to die. After a shave, haircut and a negotiation of a painting deal, he admitted himself to the Anchorage Hospital and fulfilled his prediction.

• In 1969, Valdez celebrated as the Alaska Maru arrived with the first shipment of Trans-Alaska Pipeline pipe from Japan.

In the nation

• In 1944, during World War II, U.S. Army troops entered Germany for the first time, near Trier.

• In 1953, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in Newport, R.I.

• In 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy addressed the issue of his Roman Catholicism, telling a Protestant group in Houston, "I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me."

• In 1986, Joseph Cicippio, the acting comptroller at the American University in Beirut, was kidnapped; he was released in December 1991.

• In 2000, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first lady to win an election as she claimed victory in the New York Democratic Senate primary, defeating little-known opponent Dr. Mark McMahon.

• In 2004, U.S. Airways Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in two years. Ten people were killed in an apartment fire just outside Columbus, Ohio.

In the world

• In 1609, English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into the river that now bears his name.

• In 1938, Adolf Hitler demanded self-determination for the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia.

• In 1943, German paratroopers took Benito Mussolini from the hotel where he was being held by the Italian government.

• In 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed by Ethiopia's military, after ruling for 58 years.

• In 1977, South African black student leader Steven Biko died while in police custody, triggering an international outcry.

• In 1988, Hurricane Gilbert slammed into Jamaica, killing 45 people and causing damage estimated at up to $1 billion.

• In 1995, the Belarussian military shot down a hydrogen balloon during an international race, killing its two American pilots, John Stuart-Jervis and Alan Fraenckel.

• In 2000, a series of clashes between police and protesters marred a generally peaceful second day of the three-day Asia-Pacific Economic Summit in Melbourne, Australia. Dutch lawmakers gave same-sex couples the right to marriage and all the trappings, including adoption and divorce.