On This Day February 3

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On This Day December 25

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1776 – General George Washington and 2,400 of his Continental Army troops cross the icy waters of the Delaware River for a surprise attack against Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey.

1914 – Gunfire is replaced with the sounds of Christmas carols as German troops serving in World War I lay down their weapons and break into song on Christmas morning. Russian, French and British troops do the same and even shake hands and exchange cigarettes with enemy soldiers along the eastern and western fronts during the Christmas Truce of 1914. 

1962 – “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a film based on the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Harper Lee, opens in theaters, starring Gregory Peck, who wins a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as attorney Atticus Finch.

1973 – “The Sting,” starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as a pair of 1930s grifters, premieres.

1977 – British director, producer and comedic actor Charlie Chaplin, an icon of the silent film era, dies at the age of 88.

1989 – Ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, are executed following a popular uprising.

1989 – Former New York Yankees manager Billy Martin dies in a traffic accident at the age of 61.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union just days after 11 of the former Soviet republics establish the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1996 – Six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey is killed in her Boulder, Colorado, home. Her parents call police the following morning to report their daughter missing and discover a ransom note demanding $118,000. The girl’s body is found in the basement that afternoon. The crime becomes a national sensation that remains unsolved today.

On This Day December 8

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On This Day December 7

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1941 – Japanese forces launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, thrusting the U.S. into World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt calls it “a date which will live in infamy.”

1963 – Decades before the DVR and years before the first Super Bowl, instant replay is used for the first time during an Army-Navy college football game. As the CBS broadcast replays Rollie Stichweh’s winning touchdown, commentator Lindsey Nelson tells viewers, “Ladies and gentlemen, Army did not score again!”

1972 – Apollo 17 hurtles toward space, carrying a three-man crew to the last moon landing of the Apollo program.

1982 – The nation’s first execution by lethal injection takes place at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. Charles Brooks, Jr. was convicted of kidnapping and murdering an auto mechanic.

1993 – Colin Ferguson opens fire on a Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) commuter train after it pulls out of New York’s Penn Station, killing six and injuring 19. Other passengers overpower Ferguson when he stops to reload his pistol. The incident comes to be known as the Long Island Rail Road Massacre.

2001 – The heist film “Ocean’s Eleven,” starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Bernie Mac, Don Cheadle, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts, and directed by Steven Soderbergh, opens in theaters. It is a remake of the 1960 movie of the same name that starred “Rat Pack” members Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., along with Angie Dickinson.

On this Day June 7

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On this Day May 16

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1929 – A far cry from the pageantry of today’s Oscar ceremonies, about 270 guests attend a dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel where the first Academy Awards are handed out.

1960 – Two weeks after the Soviet downing of an American U-2 spy plane, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev lashes out at the U.S. and President Dwight D. Eisenhower at a Paris summit between the two heads of state. Khrushchev’s outburst angered Eisenhower and doomed any chances for successful talks or negotiations.

1965 – The Franco-American food company revolutionizes the way American kids eat when it introduces SpaghettiOs — canned pasta rings in tomato and cheese sauce. “The neat round spaghetti you can eat with a spoon…Uh-Oh! SpaghettiOs.”

1977 – A commuter helicopter accident on the roof of the Pan Am Building (now MetLife Building) in Manhattan leaves five people dead, eight others injured. Investigators blame the crash on “metal fatigue,” which caused the landing gear to fail. The helipad is never used again.

1988 – Surgeon General C. Everett Koop issues a report stating that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.

1996 – The final episode of “Murder, She Wrote,” starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher, airs on CBS, ending a successful 12-season run.

2014 – Broadcast journalist and TV personality Barbara Walters retires from ABC News and as co-host of the daytime program “The View.” The 84-year-old Walters blazed a trail for women in television news during a distinguished career spanning more than 50 years.