- 1589 – William Bradford is born. He was the Governor of Plymouth colony for 30 years and is the 11th great-grandfather of Utah’s Lt. Governor, Deidre Henderson.
- 1875 – Margaret Foley is born. She became a labor organizer, suffragist, and social worker, and an out-spoken suffrage activist who would loudly confront anti-suffrage speakers. She made a solo balloon flight over Lawrence, Massachusetts, tossing suffrage literature from the basket.
- 1916 – The first US air combat mission begins.
- 1931 – Nevada legalizes gambling.
- 1954 – Jill Abramson is born in New York City. She became the first female executive editor of the New York Times.
- 1964 – Geraldine Mock departs from Columbus, Ohio in her single-engine Cessna 180 christened the “Spirit of Columbus” in an ambitious adventure. She earned the nickname the “Flying Housewife” and became the first woman to fly around the world solo when she returned to Columbus on April 17, 1964.
- 1979 – C-Span launches and begins broadcasting live from the US House of Representatives. Did you know it had been around that long? Neither did I.
- 2003 – War in Iraq begins.
