1813 – David Livingstone, missionary and African explorer, was born in Blantyre, Scotland.
1831 – The first bank robbery in America was reported. The City Bank of New York City lost $245,000 in the heist.
1848 – Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth, Illinois.
1916 – The first air combat missions in U.S. history with the launch of 8 planes from the First Aero Squadron in Columbus, New México.
1931 – The state of Nevada legalized gambling.
1949 – The American Museum of Atomic Energy opened in Oak Ridge, TN.
1953 – The Academy Awards celebrated their silver anniversary with its first television presentation. NBC paid $100,000 for the rights to broadcast the event on both radio and TV.
1954 – Viewers saw the first televised prize fight shown in color as Joey Giardello knocked out Willie Troy in round seven of a scheduled 10-round bout at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
1954 – The first rocket-driven sled that ran on rails was tested in Alamogordo, NM.
1985 – IBM announced that it was planning to stop making the PCjr consumer-oriented computer. The machine had been expected to dominate the home computer market but didn’t quite live up to those expectations. In the 16 months that the PCjr was on the market, only 240,000 units were sold.
2003 – The U.S. launches air strikes as the Iraq War begins.
Chief Writing Wolf 