| 2004 | Usher releases Confessions. The album sells one-point-one million copies in its first week of release — the year’s biggest debut to date. |
| 2004 | Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appear before a federal commission investigating the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks. |
| 2001 | It’s announced that Mariah Carey is parting ways with Sony Music after more than a decade. (She later signs a 100-million-dollar deal with Virgin Records, which releases only one of her albums before buying her out of her contract.) |
| 1999 | BLACKstreet releases a reunion album, Finally. Usher Live is also new in stores. |
| 1998 | Titanic wins 11 Oscars at the Academy Awards. |
| 1994 | Wayne Gretzky breaks Gordie Howe‘s National Hockey League career record by scoring his 802nd goal. |
| 1994 | Howard Stern enters the race for New York governor. |
| 1991 | During the second concert in a two-night stand at London’s Wenbley Stadium, George Michael is joined on stage by Elton John. Their performance of Elton’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” is recorded and will become a huge worldwide hit about half a year later. |
| 1989 | Close call — a thousand-foot asteroid misses the Earth by 500-thousand miles. |
| 1987 | Janet Jackson, Luther Vandross, Cameo, Gregory Abbott and Run D-M-C are big winners at the first annual Soul Train Music Awards. Stevie Wonder receives the 1987Heritage Award. |
| 1972 | An Evel Knievel motorcycle stunt goes wrong. A bad landing after a jump over 35 cars leaves the daredevil with 93 broken bones. |
| 1969 | Jackie Gleason, Kate Smith, The Lettermen, Anita Bryant and 30-thousand other people appear at a Miami Rally for Decency. Pre-show publicity warns that “longhairs and weird dressers” won’t be allowed inside. |
| 1967 | Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. calls the Vietnam War the biggest obstacle to the civil rights movement. |
| 1965 | America’s first two-person space flight takes off from Cape Kennedy. The Gemini 3 carries astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Young. |
| 1806 | Explorers Lewis and Clark, having reached the Pacific coast, begin their journey back east. |