This Day in History
In Alaska
Sound off on the important issues at
• In 1906, Frank Waskey was seated at the first delegate in the U.S House of Representatives from Alaska. He had, however, no voting power in Congress.
• In 1954, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced $3 million to $5 million worth of improvements for the airport at Naknek.
• In 1955, the first record of the first Alaska recording company began national distribution with the release of "Down Hill Drag" by the Polar Recording Co.
In the nation
• In 1818, Illinois was admitted as the 21st state.
• In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States by the Electoral College.
• In 1925, "Concerto in F," by George Gershwin, had its world premiere at New York's Carnegie Hall, with Gershwin himself at the piano.
• In 1947, the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire" opened on Broadway.
• In 1953, the musical "Kismet" opened on Broadway.
• In 1960, the musical "Camelot" opened on Broadway.
• In 1967, the 20th Century Limited, the famed luxury train, completed its final run from New York to Chicago.
• In 1979, 11 people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.
• In 1997, President Clinton hosted his first town hall meeting on America's race relations in Akron, Ohio.
• In 2002, thousands of personnel files released under a court order showed that the Archdiocese of Boston went to great lengths to hide priests accused of abuse, including clergy who had allegedly snorted cocaine and had sex with girls aspiring to be nuns.
In the world
• In 1967, surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the new heart.
• In 1984, thousands of people died after a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India.
• In 1997, South Korea struck a deal with the International Monetary Fund for a record $55 billion bailout of its foundering economy.
• In 2002, U.N. weapons inspectors made their first unannounced visit to one of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces.
• In 2006, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won re-election, defeating Manuel Rosales.