- 1889 – North Dakota and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th states.
- 1920 – KDKA in Pittsburgh starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast is the result of the 1920 presidential election.
- 1947 – Howard Hughes performs the maiden (and only) flight of the “Spruce Goose,”, the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.
- 1959 – Charles Van Doren told a congressional investigation he had been given questions and answers in advance of appearances on a television game show.
- 1962 – President John F. Kennedy announced that Soviet missile bases in Cuba were being dismantled.
- 1965 – Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam War.
- 1983 – President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
- 1984 – Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
