This Day in History
In Alaska
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• 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 more than a week.
• In 1969, a U.S. House committee cleared a 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 what was then described as largest native land conveyance in Alaska's history.
• In 1984, the Alaska Search Light was established in Juneau.
In the nation
• In 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, conducted the first successful manned powered-airplane flights, near Kitty Hawk, N.C., using their experimental craft, the Wright Flyer.
• 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 Sacramento, Calif., to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Ford.
• In 2006, searchers on Mount Hood in Oregon found the body of missing climber Kelly James; two other climbers remain missing.
In the world
• In 1777, France recognized American independence.
• In 1939, the German pocket battleship Adm. 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.)