On This Day November 10

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1775 – The U.S. Marine Corps is founded with a mission to defend the U.S. Constitution, protect American citizens and stabilize the world in times of crisis.

1903 – The U.S. Patent Office awards Patent No. 743,801 to Mary Anderson for her “window cleaning device” for cars and other vehicles to remove snow, ice or sleet from the window. Known today as the windshield wiper, Anderson never made a penny on her invention because the patent expired before it was put into widespread use.

1951 – The introduction of area codes means callers no longer require an operator to place domestic long-distance phone calls for them. Rather, they can direct-dial anywhere across the country.

1969 – “Sesame Street” premieres on public television (PBS), introducing a generation of kids to Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Kermit the Frog, Ernie and Bert, Cookie Monster and many other beloved characters — some puppets, some animated as well as live actors — breaking new ground by combining fun with education on TV.

1970 – The Great Wall of China opens to world tourism.

1975 – The SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a workhorse freighter that carried massive loads of iron ore from mines in Minnesota to various Great Lakes ports, sinks in Lake Superior after getting caught in a powerful storm. All 29 crewmembers are killed. The tragedy is immortalized in musician Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 hit, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

1989 – Germans continue to tear down whole sections of the Berlin Wall, and souvenir hunters quickly snatch up stone and concrete chunks from the crumbling Cold War icon.

On this Day June 22

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1944 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the GI Bill to provide financial aid to veterans returning from World War II.

1950 – Prominent figures in the music industry, including Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lena Horne, Pete Seeger and Artie Shaw, are named publicly as suspected Communist sympathizers as part of America’s infamous Red Scare.T Their names appear in Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television.

1966 – Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton grace the big screen with the release of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” It’s the first movie to contain certain four-letter words and adult content, but still receive the production code seal of approval.

1969 – Award-winning actress-singer Judy Garland, best known for playing Dorothy in the classic film “The Wizard of Oz,” is found dead of a drug overdose in her London home just days after her 47th birthday.

1981 – Mark David Chapman pleads guilty to the murder of music legend and former Beatle John Lennon.

2001 – There’s plenty of burning rubber on the screen as the action movie “The Fast and the Furious,” starring Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez, debuts in U.S. theaters. The film becomes a blockbuster — grossing $200 million worldwide — and spawns several sequels.

2011 – After 16 years on the run from law enforcement, James “Whitey” Bulger, a violent Boston mob boss wanted for 19 murders, is arrested in California. Bulger was among the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” fugitives. He dies in prison in 2018 at the age of 89.