This Day in History
In Alaska:
In 1918, John Green Brady, the fifth governor of Alaska, died in Sitka.
In 1955, the "huge, 70-room" Traveller's Inn opened in Anchorage.
In 1959, the Annex Creek Power Facility failed, putting Juneau on emergency power for over a week.
In 1969, a U.S. House committee cleared the last obstacle allowing the permit to be issued to build the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
In 1979, Venetie and Arctic Village were granted title to 1.8 million acres of federal land in the then "largest Native land conveyance in Alaska's history."
In 1984, the Alaska Search Light was established in Juneau.
In the nation:
In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright went on the first successful manned powered-airplane flights, near Kitty Hawk, N.C.
In 1944, the U.S. Army announced it was ending its policy of excluding Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.
In 1957, the United States successfully test-fired the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.
In 1975, Lynette Fromme was sentenced in federal court in Sacramento, Calif., to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Ford.
In 1992, President-elect Clinton tapped former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros to be housing secretary.
In the world:
In 1777, France recognized American independence.
In 1830, South American patriot Simon Bolivar died in Colombia.
In 1939, the German pocket battleship Graf Spee was scuttled by its crew, ending the World War II Battle of the River Plate off Uruguay.
In 1981, members of the Red Brigades kidnapped Brig. Gen. James L. Dozier, the highest-ranking U.S. Army official in southern Europe, from his home in Verona, Italy. (Dozier was rescued 42 days later.)
In 1986, Eugene Hasenfus, the American convicted by Nicaragua for his part in running guns to the Contras, was pardoned, then released.
In 1996, Peruvian guerrillas took hundreds of people hostage at the Japanese Embassy in Lima.
In 1996, Kofi Annan of Ghana was appointed United Nations secretary-general.
In 1992, President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in separate ceremonies. Israel ordered the deportation of 418 suspected Muslim fundamentalists from the occupied territories.
In 1997, the United States and 33 other countries signed a convention in Paris aimed at eradicating bribery in international business.
In 2001, Marines raised the Stars and Stripes over the long-abandoned American Embassy in Kabul, inaugurating what U.S. envoy James F. Dobbins promised would be a long commitment to the rebuilding of war-wrecked Afghanistan.