This Day in History
In Alaska
• In 1906, telegraphic service via submarine cable was opened between Juneau and Ketchikan.
• In 1914, the first ore train in the Juneau area operated from the Perseverance Mine to the mill at Thane, south of Juneau.
• In 1959, a Reno, Nevada, media group purchased the Alaska Daily Empire in Juneau. It is now the Juneau Empire and is owned by Morris Communications, headquartered in Atlanta, Ga.
• In 1959, Bob Hope began a series of shows for Alaska's military personnel at Ladd Air Force Base in Fairbanks.
In the Nation
• In 1851, fire devastated the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroying about 35,000 volumes.
• In 1865, several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tenn., called the Ku Klux Klan.
• In 1943, President Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces as part of Operation Overlord - the invasion of Normandy.
• In 1951, Gian Carlo Menotti's "Amahl and the Night Visitors," the first opera written specifically for television, was first broadcast by NBC.
In the World
• In 1814, the War of 1812 officially ended as the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium.
• In 1906, Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music program over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass.