This Day in History

In Alaska, in the Nation and the World

In Alaska

• In 1913, damage at Nome caused by wind and high water from the Bering Sea was estimated at $1 million.

• In 1942, the Excursion Inlet Army Post northwest of Juneau was activated with five officers and 218 enlisted men.

• In 1959, Theodore J. Norby of San Rafael, Calif., was the first person named to the $17,000 a year position of state commissioner of education.

• In 1979, most of the Prudhoe Bay oil field was shut down as 50 mph winds, dust, and rain combined to short out the central power system. The outage lasted 17 hours. The North Pacific Management Council voted to phase out Japanese tanner crab fishing in the Bering Sea by 1981.

In the nation

• In 1892, the Dalton Gang, notorious for its train robberies, was practically wiped out while attempting to rob a pair of banks in Coffeyville, Kan.

• In 1921, the World Series was broadcast on radio for the first time. (The New York Giants wound up beating the New York Yankees 5 games to 3 in the best-of-nine contest.)

• In 1947, President Truman delivered the first televised White House address. Speaking on the world food crisis, Truman called on Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry as well as eggs on Thursdays.

• In 1953, Earl Warren was sworn in as the 14th chief justice of the United States, succeeding Fred M. Vinson.

• In 1958, racially desegregated Clinton High School in Clinton, Tenn., was mostly leveled by an early morning bombing.

• In 1988, Democrat Lloyd Bentsen lambasted Republican Dan Quayle during their vice-presidential debate, telling Quayle, "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

• In 1998, the House Judiciary Committee voted along hardened partisan lines to investigate whether President Clinton should be removed from office. Michael Carneal pleaded guilty but mentally ill to shooting to death three fellow students and wounding five other people at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky. (Carneal was later sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole for 25 years.)

• In 2003, a woman opened fire at an Atlanta church before Sunday services, killing her mother and the minister before committing suicide. The Chicago Cubs won their first postseason series since 1908 when they beat Atlanta 5-1 in the decisive Game 5 of the National League playoffs.

• In 2007, President Bush defended his administration's methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects, saying they were successful and lawful. Topps Meat Co. said it was closing its 67-year-old business, six days after it was forced to issue the second-largest beef recall in U.S. history. Track star Marion Jones pleaded guilty in White Plains, N.Y., to lying to federal investigators when she denied using performance-enhancing drugs, and announced her retirement.

In the world

• In 1931, Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon completed the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean, arriving in Washington state some 41 hours after leaving Japan.

• In 1978, author Isaac Bashevis Singer was named winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.

• In 1983, Solidarity founder Lech Walesa was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

• In 2003, Israel bombed an Islamic Jihad base in Syria in the first Israeli attack deep inside Syrian territory in three decades.