Seventy-five years ago, in 1935, aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., that made her the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
On this date:
In 1757, American founding father Alexander Hamilton was born in the West Indies.
In 1787, William Herschel discovers two moons of Uranus. They are named Titania and Oberon.
In 1805, the Michigan Territory was created by an act of Congress.
In 1815, Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, was born in Glasgow, Scotland.
In 1861, Alabama seceded from the Union.
In 1908, the Grand Canyon National Monument was created with a proclamation by President Theodore Roosevelt. (It became a national park in 1919.)
In 1913, the first sedan-type automobile, a Hudson, went on display at the 13th National Automobile Show in New York.
In 1942, Japan declared war against the Netherlands, the same day that Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies.
In 1943, the United States and Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China.
In 1949, Los Angles noted its first recorded snowfall. [Our last one so far, we believe. — Ed.]
In 1964, U. S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the first government report saying smoking may be hazardous to one's health.
In 1972, East Pakistan was renamed Bangladesh.
In 1973, owners of American League baseball teams voted to adopt the designated-hitter rule.
In 1977, France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a PLO official behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated a $10 million award to the family of Oklahoma nuclear worker Karen Silkwood, who died in 1974.
In 1990, martial law, imposed during the June 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, was lifted in Beijing.
In 1995, 52 people were killed when a Colombian airliner crashed as it was preparing to land near the Caribbean resort of Cartagena.
In 1999, President Bill Clinton and House Republicans clashed in impeachment trial papers, with the White House claiming the perjury and obstruction allegations fell short of high crimes and misdemeanors and GOP lawmakers rebutting: "If this is not enough, what is?"
In 2000, whittling away more of the federal government's power over states, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that state employees cannot go into federal court to sue over age discrimination. The British government declared Chile's Augusto Pinochet medically unfit to stand trial in Spain. The ruling cleared the way for the former dictator to avoid charges of crimes against humanity. Carlton Fisk and Tony Perez were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
In 2001, the Army acknowledged that U.S. soldiers killed an "unknown number" of South Korean refugees early in the Korean War at No Gun Ri.
In 2004, Democrat Howard Dean defended his record on race in the last debate before the Iowa caucuses, as he was forced to acknowledge that no blacks or Hispanic had served in his cabinet during his 12 years as governor of Vermont.
In 2005, President George W. Bush nominated federal judge Michael Chertoff to be homeland security chief, succeeding Tom Ridge. Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi publicly acknowledged for the first time that parts of Iraq probably wouldn't be safe enough for people to vote in upcoming elections.
In 2006, a Georgian court convicted a man of trying to assassinate President George W. Bush and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in 2005 with a grenade in Tbilisi and sentenced him to life in prison.
In 2007, English soccer star David Beckham announced a five-year deal to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy. Florida upset Ohio State for the College Bowl Series championship and, three months later, beat Ohio State again for its second consecutive NCAA basketball title.
In 2008, Bank of America said it would buy Countrywide Financial for $4.1 billion in stock in a deal rescuing the country's biggest mortgage lender. Authorities in Jacksonville, N.C., found the remains of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Frances Lauterbach in the yard of Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, a comrade she had accused of raping her. (Laurean, who fled to Mexico, was arrested last April and charged in Lauterbach's death.) Former Olympic track gold medalist Marion Jones was sentenced to six months in prison for lying to investigators about using performance-enhancing drugs and her role in a check-fraud scam. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first to conquer Mount Everest, died in Auckland, New Zealand, at age 88.
In 2009, in a rare Sunday session, the Senate advanced legislation that would set aside more than 2 million acres in nine states as wilderness. A passenger ferry sank in a storm off Indonesia's Sulawesi island, killing some 230 people. Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement with the European Union that paves the way for resumption of natural gas deliveries. The Russian utility Gasprom cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in a back payment dispute and, as a result, to Eastern European countries such as Poland and Bulgaria in the midst of bitter cold weather.
Today's Birthdays: Producer Grant Tinker is 85. Producer David L. Wolper is 82. Actor Rod Taylor is 80. Composer Mary Rodgers is 79. The former prime minister of Canada, Jean Chretien, is 76. Actor Mitchell Ryan is 76. Actor Felix Silla is 73. Rock musician Clarence Clemons (E Street Band) is 68. Movie director Joel Zwick is 68. Country singer Naomi Judd is 64. Golfer Ben Crenshaw is 58. Singer Robert Earl Keen is 54. Musician Vicki Peterson (The Bangles) is 52. Actress Kim Coles is 48. Actor Jason Connery is 47. Contemporary Christian musician Jim Bryson (MercyMe) is 42. Rock musician Tom Dumont (No Doubt) is 42. R&B singer Maxee Maxwell (Brownstone) is 41. Movie director Malcolm D. Lee is 40. Singer Mary J. Blige is 39. Musician Tom Rowlands (The Chemical Brothers) is 39. Actor Marc Blucas is 38. Actress Amanda Peet is 38. Actor Rockmond Dunbar is 37.
Those Born on This Date Include: Ezra Cornell, founder of Western Union Telegraph company and Cornell University, (1807); psychologist and philosopher William James (1842); feminist lawyer Alice Paul (1885); South African novelist Alan Paton ("Cry, the Beloved Country") (1903).
A Day of Less Than Nothing in Entertainment
In 1963, the Whisky A-Go-Go club opened on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. The Doors are among the bands that got their start there.
In 1969, Jethro Tull's debut album, "This Was," was released.
In 1984, Michael Jackson was nominated for a dozen Grammy Awards. At the time, his "Thriller" album was becoming the best-selling album of all time. Jackson went on to win eight Grammys.
In 1992, Paul Simon became the first international star to perform in South Africa following the end of the United Nations cultural boycott. Simon opened a concert tour in Johannesburg.
In 1993, singer Jesse James Dupree of the band Jackyl was arrested for mooning an audience in Cincinnati. The band was touring with Damn Yankees, who also had some trouble. Damn Yankees' guitarist Ted Nugent shot a flaming arrow, which was a violation of Cincinnati's fire code. Dupree was released on bond. Nugent paid a fine.
In 2000, Gary Glitter was freed from prison after serving half of a four-month sentence for downloading pornographic pictures of children. Also in 2000, authorities at an airport in Hawaii say they found a half-ounce of marijuana in Whitney Houston's bag. She caught her flight before she could be arrested.
In 2005, James Griffin, founding member of the 1970s pop group Bread, died in Franklin, Tenn., at 61.
In 2009, the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" won four Golden Globes, including best drama; the late Heath Ledger won best supporting actor for "The Dark Knight" while Kate Winslet received two acting awards for "Revolutionary Road" and "The Reader." Theater and movie director Tom O'Horgan died in Venice, Fla., at 84.
Thought for Today: "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could." — Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882).
Thought for Today: "The essence of taste is suitability. Divest the word of its prim and priggish implications, and see how it expresses the mysterious demand of the eye and mind for symmetry, harmony and order." — Edith Wharton, American author (1862-1937).
A thought for the day: William James said, "There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it."
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