This Day in History
In Alaska
• In 1929, the first concrete was poured for what is now the Alaska state Capitol in Juneau.
• In 1947, the Army tanker El Caney with a crew of 45, was adrift south of the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific due to a damaged rudder and propeller.
• In 1975, a Japan Airlines 747 passenger jet, buffeted by 30 knot winds, blew off an icy taxiway at Anchorage International Airport, plunging into a 60-foot deep gully. The passengers and crew suffered only minor injuries.
In the nation
• In 1773, the Boston Tea Party took place as American colonists boarded a British ship and dumped more than 300 chests of tea overboard to protest tea taxes.
• In 1905, the entertainment trade publication Variety came out with its first weekly issue.
• In 1950, President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency to fight "Communist imperialism."
• In 1960, 134 people were killed when a United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collided over New York City.
• In 1985, reputed organized-crime chief Paul Castellano was shot to death outside a New York City restaurant.
• In 1995, President Clinton and congressional Republicans traded accusations as their budget impasse led to a second shutdown of the federal government.
• In 2000, President-elect Bush selected Colin Powell to become the first black secretary of state.
In the world
• In 1653, Oliver Cromwell became lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.
• In 1809, Napoleon Bonaparte was divorced from the Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate.
• In 1916, Gregory Rasputin, the monk who wielded powerful influence over the Russian court, was killed by a group of noblemen.
• In 1944, the World War II Battle of the Bulge began as German forces launched a surprise counterattack against Allied forces in Belgium.
• In 2004, Britain's highest court dealt a huge blow to the government's anti-terrorism policy by ruling that it could not detain foreign suspects indefinitely without trial. Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein met with a lawyer for the first time since his capture a year earlier.