1869 ~ Mary Ellen "Mammy" Pleasant officially became the Vodoo Queen in San Francisco, CA

1896 ~ Booker T. Washington became the first African American to receive an honorary MA degree from Howard University.

1910~ The Japanese army invaded Korea.

1922 ~ The American Professional Football Association took the name of The National Football League. 

1931 ~ The Soviet Union and Afghanistan signed a treaty of neutrality.

1947 ~ Kenneth Arnold reported seeing flying saucers over Mt. Rainier, Washington.

1953 ~ John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier announced their engagement.

1962 ~ The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-7, after 22 innings.

1968 ~ "Resurrection City," a shantytown constructed as part of the Poor People's March on Washington D.C., was closed down by authorities.

1975 ~ 113 people were killed when an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashed while attempting to land during a thunderstorm at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

1985 ~ Natalia Solzhenitsyn the wife of exiled, Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, became a U.S. citizen.

1997 ~ 18-year-old Melissa Drexler was charged with murder in the death of her baby. Drexler had given birth during her prom.

1997 ~ The U.S. Air Force released a report on the "Roswell Incident," suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.

1998 ~ AT&T Corp. struck a deal to buy cable TV giant Tele-Communications Inc. for $31.7 billion.

2002 ~  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juries, not judges, must make the decision to give a convicted killer the death penalty.

2002 ~ A painting from Monet's Waterlilies series sold for $20.2 million.

2003 ~  In Paris, France, manuscripts by novelist Georges Simenon brought in $325,579. The original manuscript of "La Mort de Belle" raised $81,705.