| On this date in: |
| 1757 |
American founding father Alexander Hamilton was born in the West Indies. |
 |
| AP Photo/New York Public Library |
|
| 1805 |
The Michigan Territory was created. |
| 1861 |
Alabama seceded from the Union. |
| 1973 |
Owners of American League baseball teams voted to adopt the designated-hitter rule. |
| 1977 |
France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. |
| 2002 |
The first planeload of al-Qaida prisoners from Afghanistan arrived at a U.S. military detention camp in Guantanamo, Cuba. |
| 2003 |
Calling the death penalty process “arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral,” Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 condemned inmates, clearing his state’s death row two days before leaving office. |
| 2007 |
English soccer player David Beckham announced a five-year deal to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy. |
| 2008 |
Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to conquer Mount Everest, died at age 88. |
| 2010 |
Mark McGwire admitted to The Associated Press that he’d used steroids and human growth hormone when he broke baseball’s home run record in 1998. |
