1770 – Marie Antoinette, at age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.

1866 – The U.S. Congress authorized the first 5-cent piece to be minted.

1868 – U.S. President Andrew Johnson was acquitted during the Senate impeachment, by one vote.

1879 – The Treaty of Gandamak between Russia and England set up the Afghan state.

1881 – In Germany, the first electric tram for the public started service.

1888 – The first demonstration of recording on a flat disc was demonstrated by Emile Berliner.

1888 – The capitol of Texas was dedicated in Austin.

1910 – The U.S. Bureau of Mines was authorized by the U.S. Congress.

1914 – The American Horseshoe Pitchers Association (AHPA) was formed in Kansas City, Kansas.

1920 – Joan of Arc was canonized in Rome.

1929 – The first Academy Awards were held in Hollywood.

1939 – The Philadelphia Athletics and the Cleveland Indians met at Shibe Park in Philadelphia for the first baseball game to be played under the lights in the American League.

1946 – “Annie Get Your Gun” opened on Broadway.

1946 – Jack Mullin showed the world the first magnetic tape recorder.

1948 – The body of CBS News correspondent George Polk was found in Solonika Bay in Greece. It had been a week after he’d disappeared.

1960 – A Big Four summit in Paris collapsed due to the American U-2 spy plane incident.

1960 – Theodore Maiman, at Hughes Research Laboratory in California, demonstrated the first working laser.

1963 – After 22 Earth orbits Gordon Cooper returned to Earth, ending Project Mercury.

1965 – Spaghetti-O’s were sold for the first time.

1969 – Venus 5, a Russian spacecraft, landed on the planet Venus.

1971 – U.S. postage for a one-ounce first class stamp was increased from 6 to 8 cents.

1975 – Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1977 – Five people were killed when a New York Airways helicopter, idling on top of the Pan Am Building in Manhattan, toppled over, sending a huge rotor blade flying.

1985 – Michael Jordan was named Rookie of the Year in the NBA.

1987 – The Bobro 400 set sail from New York Harbor with 3,200 tons of garbage. The barge travelled 6,000 miles in search of a place to dump its load. It returned to New York Harbor after 8 weeks with the same load.

1988 – A report released by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop declared that nicotine was addictive in similar was as heroin and cocaine.

1988 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police do not have to have a search warrant to search discarded garbage.

1991 – Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.

1992 – The Endeavour space shuttle landed safely after its maiden voyage.

1996 – Admiral Jeremy “Mike” Boorda, the nation’s top Navy officer, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after some of his military awards were called into question.

1997 – In Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko gave control of the country to rebel forces ending 32 years of autocratic rule.

2000 – U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was nominated to run for U.S. Senator in New York. She was the first U.S.first lady to run for public office.

2005 – Sony Corp. unveiled three styles of its new PlayStation 3 video game machine.

MINES, U.S. BUREAU OF. In 1910, Congress passed the Organic Act (Public Law 179), officially creating the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM). Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, a geologist and professor, was the bureau’s first director. The bureau’s first priority under Holmes’s direction was the reduction of the alarmingly high number of deaths in mining accidents. In 1913, however, the bureau’s scope of authority expanded to include the collection, analysis, and dissemination of economic data with in the mining industry. In 1925, the USBM was moved from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Commerce, where it became the principal collector of mineral statistics and acquired the responsibility of producing, conserving, and exploiting helium gas, important at the time to national defense.

The influence of the labor movement in the late 1930s paved the way for the Coal Mine Inspection Act of 1941. This act gave the USBM authority to inspect mines for safety conditions and recommend corrective measures, although enforcement power remained limited until Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, establishing mandatory standards and making it possible for the USBM to research alternative mining procedures. The Federal Coal Mine Safety and Health Amendments Act of 1977 addressed for the first time regulatory procedures concerning coal, metal, and nonmetal mining operations, as well as research germane to all three types of mining.

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