1867
The United States took formal possession of Alaska from Russia.
[Two places I will probably never see, and I’m okay with that.]

1892
The first long-distance telephone line between New York and Chicago was officially opened (it could only handle one call at a time).
[Kind of like AT&T today.]

1922
The British Broadcasting Co., Ltd. (BBC) was founded.
[I love Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington.]

1931
Inventor Thomas Alva Edison died in West Orange, N.J., at age 84.
[He was predeceased by Topsy, the elephant he electrocuted.]

1962
James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for determining the double-helix molecular structure of DNA.
[Awesome.]

1969
The federal government banned artificial sweeteners known as cyclamates (SY’-kluh-maytz) because of evidence they caused cancer in laboratory rats.
[I had at least three years of ingesting sweets before it was banned.]

1972
Congress passed the Clean Water Act, overriding President Nixon’s veto.
[Once upon a time, the U.S. Congress actually did a good thing.]

Other than that, nothing awesome happened on this day until 1992 when my son was born (see below).