| On this date in: |
| 1861 |
Five Southerners resigned from the U.S. Senate, including Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, the future president of the Confederacy. |
| 1915 |
The first Kiwanis Club was founded, in Detroit. |
| 1924 |
Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died of a stroke at age 53. |
| 1950 |
A federal jury in New York City found former State Department official Alger Hiss guilty of perjury. |
| 1954 |
The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton, Conn. |
| 1976 |
The supersonic Concorde jet was put into service by Britain and France. |
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| AP Photo |
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| 1977 |
President Jimmy Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders. |
| 1994 |
A jury in Manassas, Va., acquitted Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously wounding her husband, John, whom she’d accused of sexually assaulting her. |
| 1997 |
Speaker Newt Gingrich was reprimanded and fined as the House voted for first time in history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct. |
| 1998 |
Pope John Paul II began his first visit to Cuba. |
| 2003 |
The Census Bureau announced that Hispanics had surpassed blacks as America’s largest minority group. |
| 2004 |
The recording industry sued 532 computer users it said were illegally distributing songs over the Internet. |
| 2010 |
A bitterly divided Supreme Court, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, vastly increased the power of big business and labor unions to influence government decisions by freeing them to spend their millions directly to sway elections for president and Congress. |
| 2010 |
Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards finally admitted fathering a child during an affair before his second White House bid. |
