On this day for the United States
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Events
- 1783 – American Revolutionary War: Spain recognizes United States independence.
- 1809 – The Illinois Territory is created.
- 1834 – Wake Forest University is established.
- 1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to citizens regardless of race.
- 1900 – Gubernatorial candidate William Goebel is assassinated in Frankfort, Kentucky.
- 1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
- 1917 – World War I: The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany a day after the latter announced a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
- 1918 – The Twin Peaks Tunnel in San Francisco, California, begins service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at 11,920 feet (3,633 meters) long.
- 1944 – World War II: During the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, U.S. Army and Marine forces seize Kwajalein Atoll from the defending Japanese garrison.
- 1945 – World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin, a raid which kills between 2,500 to 3,000 and dehouses another 120,000.
- 1959 – A plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, kills Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson, and the incident becomes known as The Day the Music Died.
- 1971 – New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption. Many believe the incident proves that NYPD officers tried to kill him.
- 1984 – John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth.
- 1984 – Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger.
- 1988 – Iran–Contra affair: The United States House of Representatives rejects President Ronald Reagan's request for $36.25 million to aid Nicaraguan Contras.
- 1995 – Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
- 1998 – Karla Faye Tucker is executed in Texas becoming the first woman executed in the United States since 1984.
- 1998 – Cavalese cable-car disaster: a United States Military pilot causes the death of 20 people when his low-flying plane cuts the cable of a cable-car near Trento, Italy.