| On this date in: |
| 1818 |
Illinois was admitted to the union as the 21st state. |
| 1828 |
Andrew Jackson was elected the seventh president of the United States. |
| 1947 |
“A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams opened on Broadway. |
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| AP Photo |
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| 1948 |
The House Un-American Activities Committee announced that former Communist spy Whittaker Chambers had produced microfilm of secret documents hidden inside a pumpkin on his Maryland farm. |
| 1964 |
Police arrested some 800 students at the University of California at Berkeley who had stormed the administration buildingthe previous day and staged a massive sit-in. |
| 1965 |
The album “Rubber Soul” by the Beatles was released. |
| 1967 |
Surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant. |
| 1967 |
The 20th Century Limited, the famed luxury train, completed its final run from New York City to Chicago. |
| 1979 |
Eleven people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum before a rock concert by the Who. |
| 1989 |
East German Communist leader Egon Krenz, the ruling Politburo and the party’s Central Committee resigned. |
| 1997 |
South Korea struck a deal with the International Monetary Fund for a $55 billion bailout of its foundering economy. |
| 1999 |
Scientists failed to make contact with the Mars Polar Lander after it began its fiery descent toward the red planet; the spacecraft was presumed destroyed. |
| 2009 |
Comcast and GE announced joint venture plans, with Comcast owning a 51 percent controlling stake in NBC Universal. |
