This Day in History
In Alaska, in the Nation and the World
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In Alaska
• In 1865, Sydney Laurence, Alaska's most famous artist, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. He lived until 1940.
• In 1969, an Anchorage man found a leak in his kitchen roof. It was caused by a box of aircraft machine tools that fell from a plane and created a three-foot hole in his roof.
• In 1964, the Anchorage City Council appointed a 28-person committee to put together a bid for the 1972 Winter Olympics.
In the nation
• In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the presidency, was shot in the chest in Milwaukee. Despite the wound, he went ahead with a scheduled speech.
• In 1947, Air Force test pilot Charles Yeager broke the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 rocket plane over Muroc Dry Lake in California.
• In 1960, the idea of a Peace Corps was first suggested by Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy to students at the University of Michigan.
• In 1987, a real-life drama began in Midland, Texas, as 18-month-old Jessica McClure slid 22 feet down an abandoned well. Hundreds of rescuers worked 58 hours to free her.
• In 1997, the Florida Marlins won the National League championship, defeating the Atlanta Braves 7-4 in Game 6.
• In 2002, another shooting was linked to the Washington-area sniper attacks: FBI analyst Linda Franklin was killed in a mall parking lot in Falls Church, Va. President Bush called recent attacks in Kuwait, Indonesia and Yemen part of a grim pattern of terror, and said, "We've got a long way to go" to defeat Osama bin Laden's global network. The San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1 to win the National League Championship Series in five games.
In the world
• In 1066, Normans under William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings.
• In 1586, Mary, Queen of Scots, went on trial in England, accused of committing treason against Queen Elizabeth I. Mary was beheaded in February 1587.
• In 1806, the forces of French Emperor Napoleon I defeated the Prussians in the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt.
• In 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel committed suicide rather than face execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.
• In 1968, the first successful live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft was transmitted from Apollo 7.