1789 – James Madison introduces twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in Congress.
1861 – Tennessee secedes from the Union.
1869 – Ives McGaffney obtained a patent for a “sweeping machine,” the first vacuum cleaner.
1906 – Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.
1949 – Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Frederic March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI Report as Communist Party members.
1949 – George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.
1995 – Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O’Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.
