On this date
In 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state of the union. In 1932, World War I veterans began arriving in Washington to demand cash bonuses they weren’t scheduled to receive until 1945.
In 1942, Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” in Los Angeles for Decca Records.
In 1953, Mount Everest was conquered as Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tensing Norgay of Nepal became the first climbers to reach the summit.
In 1961, a couple in Paynesville, W.Va., became the first recipients of food stamps under a pilot program created by President John F. Kennedy.
In 1977, Janet Guthrie became the first woman to race in the Indianapolis 500, finishing in 29th place (the winner was A.J. Foyt).
In 1987, a jury in Los Angeles acquitted “Twilight Zone” movie director John Landis and four associates of involuntary manslaughter in the movie-set deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, who were killed by a falling helicopter.
Ten years ago: President George W. Bush ordered new U.S. economic sanctions to pressure Sudan’s government to halt bloodshed in Darfur.
Five years ago: Doc Watson, the Grammy-award winning folk musician whose lightning-fast style of flatpicking influenced guitarists around the world for more than a half-century, died in Winston-Salem, N.C., at age 89. One year ago: French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel solemnly marked 100 years since the World War I Battle of Verdun.