This Day in History
In Alaska
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• In 1918, the Princess Sophia wrecked on Vanderbilt Reef north of Juneau, in the early morning hours. It sank with all on board the next night.
• In 1919, Joe K. Green established the weekly Hyder Alaska Miner.
• In 1929, Alaska Airlines announced a contract with Swansen Fur Trading Company to bring 15 passengers and six tons of freight from Siberia to Fairbanks.
• In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court's one-year ban on bowhead whale hunting by Alaska Natives.
• In 1979, the film, "Spirit of the Wind" premiered in Fairbanks. The movie was based on the life of Alaskan dog musher George Attla.
In the nation
• In 1861, the first transcontinental telegraph message was sent as Chief Justice Stephen J. Field of California transmitted a telegram to President Abraham Lincoln.
• In 1901, widow Anna Edson Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
• In 1931, the George Washington Bridge, connecting New York and New Jersey, was officially dedicated (it opened to traffic the next day).
• In 1939, nylon stockings were sold publicly for the first time, in Wilmington, Del.
• In 1940, the 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
• In 1952, Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower declared in Detroit, "I shall go to Korea" as he promised to end the conflict. (He made the visit over a month later.)
• In 1987, 30 years after it was expelled, the Teamsters union was welcomed back into the AFL-CIO. (However, the Teamsters disaffiliated themselves from the AFL-CIO in 2005.)
• In 1997, setting the stage for an upcoming summit, President Bill Clinton rejected calls for a confrontational approach to China, arguing that isolating the Chinese would be "potentially dangerous." In Arlington, Va., former NBC sportscaster Marv Albert was spared a jail sentence after a grudging courtroom apology to the woman he'd bitten during a sexual romp.