Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1570

Pope Pius V excommunicated England's Queen Elizabeth I.

1836

Inventor Samuel Colt patented his revolver.

1870

Hiram R. Revels, R-Miss., became the first black member of the United States Senate as he was sworn in to serve out the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis.

1901

U.S. Steel was incorporated by J.P. Morgan.

1919

Oregon became the first state to tax gasoline.

1940

A hockey game was televised for the first time, by New York City station W2XBS, as the New York Rangers defeated the Montreal Canadiens 6-2 at Madison Square Garden.

1948

Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia.

1950

"Your Show of Shows" made its debut on NBC.

1956

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev harshly criticized the late Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow.

1986

President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule in the wake of a tainted election. Corazon Aquino assumed the presidency.

1990

Nicaraguans voted in an election that led to an upset victory for opponents of the ruling Sandinistas.

1991

During the Persian Gulf War, 28 Americans were killed when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a U.S. barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

1994

American-born Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein opened fire inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank, killing 29 Muslims before he was beaten to death by worshippers.

1999

A jury in Jasper, Texas, sentenced white supremacist John William King to death for chaining James Byrd Jr., a black man, to a pickup truck and dragging him to pieces.

1999

Israel's Supreme Court blocked the extradition of American teenager Samuel Sheinbein to the United States to face charges stemming from a slaying in Maryland.

2000

A jury in Albany, N.Y., acquitted four, white New York police officers of all charges in the shooting death of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo.