On This Day February 26

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1919 – The U.S. Congress passes an act establishing the Grand Canyon as a National Park in Arizona. 

1929 – The U.S. Congress establishes Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

1934 – President Franklin Roosevelt orders the creation of a Communications Commission, which would become the FCC later that year by an act of Congress.

1972 – A mining dam collapses, sending millions of gallons of black coal wastewater across a wide area of Logan County, West Virginia. The Buffalo Creek Disaster claims 125 lives and leaves 4,000 people homeless.

1993 – Six people are killed and more than 1,000 others are injured when a bomb, planted inside a parked van, explodes in the garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. The blast leaves a crater 150 feet wide and causes the collapse of several steel-reinforced concrete floors. Six terrorists are eventually captured, tried and convicted for the attack.

1998 – A jury finds Oprah Winfrey not guilty in a $10 million defamation lawsuit brought by Texas cattle ranchers. The plaintiffs had accused the talk show host of harming the U.S. beef industry with a 1996 broadcast about mad cow disease. Exiting the courtroom, Winfrey exclaims, “Free speech not only lives, it rocks!”

2012 – Trayvon Martin, an African-American teen, is fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman while walking home from a Sanford, Florida convenience store. The killing sparks a national outcry over race relations and self-defense gun laws, as Martin was unarmed when he was shot.

On This Day February 10

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On This Day January 29

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1845 – The Evening Mirror publishes Edgar Allan Poe’s now-classic poem, “The Raven” which begins, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…”

1936 – The first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced In Cooperstown, New York. They include Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson.

1963 – Robert Frost, considered the dean of American poets, dies in Boston at the age of 88.

1964 – Stanley Kubrick’s black comic masterpiece, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” opens in movie theaters to critical acclaim. Actor Peter Sellers plays three roles in the Cold War parody.

1979 – Teenager Brenda Spencer shoots and kills two men and wounds nine children as they enter the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego. Asked by authorities upon her arrest why she did it, the 16-year-old replies, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” The incident inspires The Boomtown Rats to write their hit song, “I Don’t Like Mondays.”

1979 – President Jimmy Carter welcomes Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping to the White House following the establishment of diplomatic relations. The visit culminates with the signing of historic new accords that reverse decades of U.S. opposition to the People’s Republic of China.

2002 – In his first State of the Union address since the September 11 terror attacks on the U.S., President George W. Bush says Iraq, Iran and North Korea constitute an “axis of evil.” He outlines his rationale for the “war on terror,” a series of military engagements which would define U.S. foreign policy for years to come.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1964 – The Beatles spend the day at the Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris in their only studio recording session for EMI held outside the U.K. They record “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” in German.

1966 – “We Can Work It Out,” by The Beatles, reaches the top of the Billboard singles chart and remains there for a week.

1970 – Elvis Presley releases the single “Kentucky Rain,” which climbs as high as No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1972 – Don McLean’s “American Pie” is in the midst of a four-week ride atop the Billboard Hot 100. In 2017, the recording is selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or artistically significant.”

1977 – “Car Wash,” by Rose Royce, is the No. 1 single. It comes from the movie of the same name that features Richard Pryor, George Carlin and The Pointer Sisters, and is considered a staple of the disco genre.

1983 – Men at Work wrap up three weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Down Under,” off the Aussie band’s “Business as Usual” album.

1994 – “All for Love,” by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting, is in the middle of a three-week run on top of the pop chart. The single comes from the soundtrack to “The Three Musketeers,” a movie starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland and Chris O’Donnell.

2000 – The No. 1 spot on the pop chart belongs to Australian pop duo Savage Garden with “I Knew I Loved You.”

2011 – Britney Spears lands on top of the Billboard Hot 100 for a week with “Hold It Against Me.”

2019 – Two-time Grammy-winning 80s R&B singer-songwriter James Ingram (“Just Once,” “Baby, Come to Me,” “I Don’t Have the Heart”) dies of brain cancer at the age of 66.

On This Day September 17

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1787 – Drafted in secret by delegates to the Constitutional Convention, the four-page U.S. Constitution is signed, establishing a framework for the government of the United States and an intricate system of checks and balances.

1862 – At the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Union General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac fight to a standstill along a Maryland creek. The bloodiest day in American military history ends with nearly 23,000 soldiers killed, wounded or missing, and changes the course of the Civil War.

1937 – The stone likeness of President Abraham Lincoln’s face is officially dedicated at Mount Rushmore.

1963 – New programming premieres on ABC: “The Greatest Show on Earth” and “The Fugitive,” the latter of which is made into a movie 30 years later, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. 

1966 – The spy series “Mission: Impossible” debuts on CBS. Thirty years later, in 1996, the first in a series of “Mission: Impossible” movies is produced starring, starring Tom Cruise. 

1972 – The Korean War-era series “M*A*S*H,” starring Alan Alda, begins an 11-year run on CBS

1976 – NASA unveils the first space shuttle, Enterprise, a $10 billion technological marvel that took a decade to develop. 

1978 – A milestone is achieved on the road to a Middle East peace, with the signing of the Camp David Accords. U.S. President Jimmy Carter presides as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli President Menachem Begin agree to end three decades of hostilities between their nations. 

1996 – Daytime talk show host Oprah Winfrey launches a television book club. Oprah’s Book Club quickly becomes an influential force in the publishing world, with Winfrey’s endorsements capable of catapulting a previously little-known book onto best-seller lists.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1967 – The Doors are banned from “The Ed Sullivan Show” after front man Jim Morrison breaks his agreement with the producers to replace the word “higher” with “better” in the line “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher” in the song “Light My Fire.” After learning that his band would not be welcome back on the program, Morrison reportedly said, “Hey, that’s okay – we just did the Ed Sullivan Show.”

1969 – Media on both sides of the Atlantic report that Paul McCartney of The Beatles is dead — supposedly killed in a car accident in Scotland in November 1966 and that a double had been standing in for him during public appearances. In fact, Paul and his girlfriend, Jane Asher, were vacationing in Kenya at the time.

1977 – Andy Gibb owns the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 with “I Just Want to Be Your Everything.”

1988 – Guns N’ Roses begins the second and final week at No. 1 on the singles chart with “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” off the band’s debut album, “Appetite for Destruction.”

1994 – “I’ll Make Love to You,” by Boyz II Men, is in the midst of a 14-week domination of the singles chart.

2005 – “Gold Digger,” by Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx, kicks off 10 weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

2011 – Adele dominates the pop chart for a week with “Someone Like You,” off her “21” album. It becomes her second U.S. No. 1.

2016 – Barbra Streisand extends her record as the artist with the most No. 1 albums in chart history (11) when “Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway” reaches the top of the Billboard album chart.

On This Day September 8

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1900 – A hurricane packing winds in excess of 130 miles per hour and a 15-foot storm surge slams into Galveston, Texas, devastating the island. Between 6,000 and 8,000 people are killed, making the hurricane the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history up to that time. Ten thousand survivors are left homeless.

1921 – Sixteen-year-old Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C., is crowned the first Miss America at the end of a two-day pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey. 

1966 – A television sci-fi phenom is born with the premiere of “Star Trek” on NBC. The series, consisting of 79 episodes over three seasons, stars William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, first officer and science officer aboard the starship USS Enterprise. In the decades since the original series ended, “Star Trek” has spawned spin-offs, movies and conventions.

1974 – President Gerald Ford attempts to give closure to the Watergate scandal by granting his predecessor, Richard Nixon, a pardon for any crimes he may have committed or participated in while in office. 

1974 – Daredevil Evel Knievel survives a failed bid to leap the mile-wide chasm of the Snake River Canyon (Idaho) on his rocket-powered motorcycle.

1986 – “The Oprah Winfrey Show” debuts as the first talk show hosted by an African American woman. 

1994 – US Air Flight 427 crashes on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport. All 132 people on board the Boeing 737 are killed. A lengthy investigation concludes that the cause was a faulty rudder.

2022 – Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history, dies at age 96 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. The crown passes to her eldest son, who becomes King Charles III.