1833 – Benjamin Harrison, 23rd president of the United States, was born in North Bend, Ohio.
1866 – President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, months after the fighting had stopped.
1911 – The first around-the-world telegram was sent from Shanghai to San Francisco in 16 1/2 minutes.
1920 – Pioneering American radio station 8MK in Detroit (later WWJ) began daily broadcasting.
1940 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid tribute to the Royal Air Force, saying, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
1964 – President Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act, a nearly $1 billion anti-poverty measure.
1977 – The U.S. launched Voyager 2, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.
1980 – Italian Reinhold Messner was the first person to climb Mt. Everest alone.
Happy Birthday
Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, is 75.
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is 73.
Broadcast journalist Connie Chung is 62.
