63.0°

In Alaska, in the Nation and the World

In Alaska

• In 1901, the post office of Chignik was opened with Joseph Hume as postmaster.

• In 1909, the Bering Sea National Wildlife Refuge was established.

• In 1923, the 1,400-foot Tanana steel bridge was completed on the Alaska Railroad. President Warren G. Harding established the National Petroleum Reserve on the North Slope.

• In 1975, Gilbert Zemansky, a sanitary engineer for the Department of Environmental Conservation, was fired for reporting sewage discharge problems at pipeline camps to the press. A heavy-set man with a revolver robbed the First National Bank on Elmendorf Air Force Base.

• In 1987, Gov. Steve Cowper ordered the state to pull out of land-trade negotiations relating to possible oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

• In 1988, a joint study by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Alaska Railroad reported that there was no connection between moose deaths and train speed.

In the nation

• In 1922, the Supreme Court, in Leser v. Garnett, unanimously upheld the 19th Amendment to the Constitution that guaranteed the right of women to vote.

• In 1939, the Supreme Court, in National Labor Relations Board v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., outlawed sit-down strikes.

• In 1951, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, limiting a president to two terms of office, was ratified.

• In 1960, the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets, 3-2, at the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, Calif. (The U.S. team went on to win the gold medal.)

• In 1973, members of the American Indian Movement occupied the hamlet of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, the site of the 1890 massacre of Sioux men, women and children. (The occupation lasted until May.)

• In 1979, Jane M. Byrne confounded Chicago's Democratic political machine as she upset Mayor Michael A. Bilandic to win their party's mayoral primary. (Byrne went on to win the election.)

• In 1991, President George H.W. Bush declared that "Kuwait is liberated, Iraq's army is defeated," and announced that the allies would suspend combat operations at midnight, Eastern time.

• In 2007, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 416.02 points, the worst drop since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

In the world

• In 1801, the District of Columbia was placed under the jurisdiction of Congress.

• In 1861, in Warsaw, Russian troops fired on a crowd protesting Russian rule over Poland; five marchers were killed.

• In 1933, Germany's parliament building, the Reichstag, was gutted by fire. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, blaming the Communists, used the fire as justification for suspending civil liberties.