1848, Niagara Falls stops flowing — for one day — because of an ice jam.
1867, Hall Of Famer Denton True “Cy” Young, baseball’s winningest pitcher with 511 games won, was born on this day. Each year the Cy Young award is given to the season’s best pitcher in each of the two leagues.
1867, the British Parliament passed the North America Act to create the Dominion Of Canada, uniting Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.
1882, the Knights Of Columbus, an organization of Catholic men, was chartered in Connecticut.
1886, The first batch of Coca Cola was brewed over a fire in a backyard in Atlanta, Georgia. John Pemberton created the concoction as a “hangover” cure and a stomach ache/headache remedy. Cocaine was an ingredient until 1904.
1917, Man O’ War, the famous American race horse, was foaled.
1936, Adolf Hitler got 98.8 percent of the popular vote in Germany’s national election.
1951, Julius & Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. They were executed in June 1953.
1954, Karen Ann Quinlan, the comatose patient whose case prompted a historic right-to-die court decision, was born on this day. She died in a nursing home almost 10 years after she was taken off a respirator. Her family’s battle to win the right to remove the respirator became a landmark case.
1961, residents of the District Of Columbia were given the right to vote in presidential elections with the ratification of the 23rd Amendment.
1962, Jack Paar hosted NBC’s Tonight show for the final time.
1963, Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds opened. The film starred Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, and Jessica Tandy.
1967, The first nationwide strike in the 30-year history of the American Federation Of Television And Radio Artists (AFTRA) began, lasting for 13 days.
1967 The Beatles record “With A Little Help From My Friends.”
1969 “Time Of The Season” by the Zombies peaks at Number Three on the pop chart.
1971, Army Lieutenant William L. Calley, Jr. was convicted of murdering at least 22 Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai (pronounced mee ly) massacre. Calley ended up spending three years under house arrest.
1971, Charles Manson and three female followers were sentenced to death for the Tate-LaBiancamurders. The sentences were later commuted to life in prison when the California Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional.
1973, two months after the signing of a peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops left South Vietnam, ending eight years of direct intervention in the Vietnam War. Some 7,000 U.S. Department Of Defense civilian employees stayed behind to help South Vietnam conduct the ongoing war with communist North Vietnam.
1975 “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker peaks at Number Five on the pop chart.
1986 Beatles records officially go on sale in the Soviet Union.
1992, Democratic presidential front-runner Bill Clinton acknowledged experimenting with marijuana “a time or two” while attending Oxford University, adding, “I didn’t inhale and I didn’t try it again.”
1993, Unforgiven won the Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as Best Director for Clint Eastwood.
1994, Mexico’s ruling party, the PRI, picked Ernesto Zedillo to be its new presidential candidate, replacing the assassinated Luis Donaldo Colosio.
1994, Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson resigned, capping a long-standing feud with team ownerJerry Jones.