This Day in History

1783 - Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.

1791 - Britain's Observer newspaper was first published.

1812 - Peter Gaillard patented the power mower.

1867 - The National Grange of Husbandry was founded.

1875 - William Marcy Tweed, the "Boss" of New York City's Tammany Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled from the U.S.

1918 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles Peace Conference. Wilson became the first chief executive to travel to Europe while in office.

1942 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration. The program had been created in order to provide jobs during the Great Depression.

1942 - U.S. bombers attacked the Italian mainland for the first time during World War II.

1943 - Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis announced that any club was free to employ black players.

1945 - The U.S. Senate approved American participation in the United Nations.

1965 - The U.S. launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Comdr. James A. Lovell on board.

1973 - Pioneer 10 reached Jupiter.

1978 - Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco's first woman mayor when she was named to replace George Moscone, who had been murdered.

1979 - For the second time, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to urge Iran to free American hostages that had been taken on November 4.

1980 - The bodies of four American nuns slain in El Salvador two days earlier were unearthed. Five national guardsmen were later convicted of the murders.

1983 - U.S. jet fighters struck Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon in retaliation for attacks directed at American reconnaissance planes. Navy Lt. Robert O. Goodman Jr. was shot down and captured by Syria.

1984 - A five-day hijack drama began as four men seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran. Two American passengers were killed by the hijackers.

1986 - Both U.S. houses of Congress moved to establish special committees to conduct their own investigations of the Iran-Contra affair.

1987 - Cuban inmates at a federal prison in Atlanta freed their 89 hostages, peacefully ending an 11-day uprising.

1990 - Iraq promised to release 3,300 Soviet citizens it was holding.

1991 - Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson was released after nearly seven years in captivity in Lebanon.

1991 - Pan American World Airways ceased operations.

1992 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia.

1993 - The Angolan government and its UNITA guerrilla foes formally adopted terms for a truce. The conflict was killing an estimated 1,000 people per day.

1994 - Bosnian Serbs released 53 out of about 400 UN peacekeepers they were holding as insurance against further NATO airstrikes.

1997 - The play revival "The Diary of Anne Frank" opened.

1997 - The National Basketball Association (NBA) suspended Latrell Sprewell of the Golden State Warriors for one year for choking and threatening to kill his coach, P.J. Carlesimo.

2000 - O.J. Simpson was involved in an incident with another motorist in Miami, FL. Simpson was accused of scratching the other motorists face while pulling off the man's glasses.

2001 - O.J. Simpson's home in Florida was raided by the FBI in an ongoing two year international investigation into drug trafficking, satellite service pilfering and money laundering. Some satellite equipment was taken from Simpson's home and no drugs were found.