1836 – Samuel Colt received a patent for a pistol that used a revolving cylinder containing powder and bullets in six individual tubes.
1862 – The U.S. Congress passed the Legal Tender Act authorizing the use of paper notes to pay the government’s bills. This ended the policy of using only gold or silver for transactions.
1870 – Hiram Rhoades Revels, a Republican from Natchez, MS, became the first African-American to be sworn into Congress.
1873 – Enrico Caruso, one of the world’s greatest operatic tenors, was born in Naples, Italy.
1928 – The Federal Radio Commission issued the first U.S. television license to Charles Jenkins Laboratories in Washington, D.C.
1940 – The first televised hockey game was broadcast. The New York Rangers whipped the Montreal Canadiens at Madison Square Garden on W2XBS-TV in New York City, 6-2.
1948 – A communist government takes power in Czechoslovakia.
1964 – Twenty-two-year old Cassius Clay won the world heavyweight boxing title by defeating Sonny Liston in the seventh round in Miami, FL. Clay had been an 8-1 underdog. Clay later changed his name to Muhammed Ali.
1972 – Germany gave in to ransom demands from the Arab terrorist hijackers of a jumbo jet and paid $5 million for the release of its passengers.
1984 – More than 500 people, mostly children, died in Cubatao, Brazil, about 30 miles south of Sao Paulo, when a gas line exploded.
1986 – Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos fled to the U.S. after an uprising. His wife, Imelda, came with him, but she had to leave her massive shoe collection behind, which was sold to pay off the Philippine national debt.
Chief Writing Wolf 