1927 – Joseph Stalin consolidated power in the Soviet Union following the expulsion of Leon Trotsky from the Soviet Communist Party.
1936 – President Franklin Roosevelt pressed the Presidential Gold Key to open the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge officially.
1954 – After processing more than 12 million immigrants, the immigration station at Ellis Island closed its doors for the last time.
1982 – Yuri Andropov was elected to succeed the late Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee.
1999 – President Bill Clinton signed a sweeping measure knocking down Depression-era barriers and allowing banks, investment firms and insurance companies to sell each other’s products.
