1669 – Mount Etna on the island of Sicily began erupting, ultimately killing more than 20,000 people.
1855 – A train passed over the first railway suspension bridge – at Niagara Falls, NY.
1887 – The telescopic fishing rod, made of steel tubes inside one another, was patented by Everett Horton.
1894 – The state of New York enacted the first dog license law in the U.S. It cost dog owners a $2 annual fee per pooch in cities with a population over 1,200,000.
1917 – In Russia, the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia’s use of the Julian calendar) began when riots and strikes over the scarcity of food erupted in Petrograd. One week later, centuries of czarist rule in Russia ended with the abdication of Nicholas II.
1950 – The Volkswagen “microbus” goes into production.
1953 – A U.S. Census Bureau report indicated that 239,000 farmers had quit tilling the soil and planting crops (giving up farming) over the previous two years.
1957 – Egypt re-opens the Suez Canal to international traffic, following Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territory.
1962 – The Beatles – then made up of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best – performed for the first time on the BBC in Great Britain.
1965 – The U.S. landed its first combat troops in South Vietnam, as 3,500 Marines arrived in Da Nang to defend the U.S. air base.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st5ax71ZCHg
1985 – The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) discovered that 407,700 Americans were millionaires – more than double the total of just five years before.
Chief Writing Wolf 