On This Day February 9

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1825 – With no presidential candidate receiving a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the U.S. House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams, who won fewer votes than Andrew Jackson in the popular election, as president of the United States.

1870 – The National Weather Service (NWS) is established under the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

1942 – The largest ocean liner in the world, the S.S. Normandie, burns and capsizes in New York Harbor during its conversion to a World War II troop transport ship. The Normandie had been the pride of the French ocean liner fleet. Built in 1935, she was the largest and fastest and most luxuriously appointed of the new ocean liners.

1965 – The U.S. sends its first combat troops to South Vietnam.

1971 – Apollo 14 returns safely to Earth following the third successful manned moon landing. 

1971 – Pitcher Leroy “Satchel” Paige becomes the first Negro League veteran to be nominated to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is inducted six months later. Paige was known for his fastball and showmanship during a career that spanned five decades.

1992 – Three months after stunning the world with word that he had contracted the HIV virus and was immediately retiring from the Los Angeles Lakers, basketball great Magic Johnson returns to play in the 42nd NBA All-Star game in Orlando, Florida. After scoring 25 points and dishing out nine assists, Magic receives a standing ovation and is named the game’s Most Valuable Player.

On This Day November 7

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Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1951 – Legendary crooner Frank Sinatra marries his second wife, actress Ava Gardner. Six years later, they are divorced.

1964 – “Baby Love,” by The Supremes, is in the middle of four weeks as a No. 1 single. It’s a follow-up to the Motown sensation’s “Where Did Our Love Go,” which was their first chart-topper.

1969 – Paul McCartney and his family are the subject of a LIFE Magazine cover story called “The Case of the Missing Beatle: Paul is Still With Us.” Interviewed on his Scottish farm after initially chasing off the reporter, McCartney dispels rumors about his death that had been circulating around the world.

1970 – “I’ll Be There,” by The Jackson 5, is in the midst of a five-week ride atop the singles chart. It is the band’s fourth consecutive No. 1.

1981 – Hall & Oates begin a two-week run at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100  with “Private Eyes.” The single becomes the duo’s third of six career chart-toppers.

1987 – Sixteen-year-old Tiffany tops the singles chart with “I Think We’re Alone Now,” originally a hit for Tommy James & the Shondells in 1967, four years before Tiffany was born.

1992 – It’s the end of the road for Boyz II Men’s 13-week reign over the Billboard Hot 100 with their Grammy-winning single, “End of the Road.”

1998 – “The First Night,” by Monica, marks its last week as a No. 1 single. The track enjoys a total of five weeks as a Billboard chart-topper.

2009 – Owl City is perched at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week with “Fireflies.”

On This Day November 3

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On this Day May 1

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1931 – President Herbert Hoover dedicates New York City’s iconic 102-story Empire State Building by symbolically pressing a button in Washington, D.C. that illuminates what is then the world’s tallest building. The art deco skyscraper, standing 1,250 feet tall, was built in just over a year at a cost of $41 million.

1941 – “Citizen Kane” opens in New York, and through the decades, is hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made. Written and directed by 26-year-old filmmaker Orson Welles (also the star), it chronicles the life of a newspaper magnate considered to be real-life publishing baron William Randolph Hearst. 

1958 – President Dwight Eisenhower proclaims Law Day to honor the role of law in the establishment of the United States of America. In 1961, Congress follows suit by passing a joint resolution establishing May 1 as Law Day.

1960 – An American U-2 spy plane is shot down over the Soviet Union, prompting cancellation of a planned summit between U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower and Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev.

1963 – Jim Whittaker of Washington State becomes the first American to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, the world’s tallest mountain.

1971 – The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK) introduces passenger rail service in the U.S. with 184 trains a day. The first train, the Clocker, rolls out of New York’s Penn Station bound for Philadelphia just after midnight. AMTRAK was created through the Rail Passenger Act of 1970 to salvage the nation’s struggling passenger rail services.

1997 – After 18 years of Conservative rule, British voters give the Labour Party, a landslide victory in British parliamentary elections. In the poorest Conservative Party showing since 1832, Prime Minister John Major is rejected in favor of Tony Blair, who at age 43 becomes the youngest British prime minister in more than a century.