This Day in History
In Alaska
• In 1905, the Daily Miner began publication in Ketchikan and absorbed the existing Ketchikan Mining Journal.
• In 1907, Richard Harris, one of the founders of Juneau, was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Juneau.
• In 1954, the Alaska Railroad asked for bids from private operators to lease its stern-wheel riverboat Nenana which was operating on the Tanana and Yukon rivers. Three Eskimos and nine dogs were en route from Selawik to Nome with 800 reindeer to establish a new herd.
In the nation
• In 1832, John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down over differences with President Jackson.
• In 1846, Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the Union.
• In 1917, the New York Evening Mail published a facetious - as well as fictitious - essay by H.L. Mencken on the history of bathtubs in America.
• In 1944, the musical "On the Town" opened on Broadway.
• In 1945, Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.
• In 1982, Nevell Johnson Jr., a black man, was mortally wounded by a police officer in a Miami video arcade, setting off three days of race-related disturbances that left another man dead.
• In 1993, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary told CNN that people wrongfully exposed to radiation through federally funded experiments more than 40 years ago deserved to be compensated.
• In 1998, American warplanes exchanged missile fire with Iraqi air defenses; President Clinton said there would be no letup in American and British pressure on Saddam Hussein.
In the world
• In 1897, the play "Cyrano de Bergerac," by Edmond Rostand, premiered in Paris.
• In 1973, Alexander Solzhenitsyn published "Gulag Archipelago," an expose of the Soviet prison system.
• In 1998, four people were killed, two gone missing and presumed dead, when fierce gales struck during an Australian yacht race.
• In 2002, the U.N. nuclear watchdog decided to pull its inspectors out of North Korea by New Year's Eve, a step demanded by the North. Mwai Kibaki and his opposition alliance won a landslide victory in Kenyan elections, breaking the ruling party's 39-year grip on power.