TODAY IN HISTORY

1790: Congress moved to Philadelphia from New

York.

1865: The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified as Georgia became the 27th state to endorse it.

1907: The worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.

1917: Some 2,000 people were killed when an explosives-laden French cargo ship, the Mont Blanc, collided with the Norwegian vessel Imo at the harbor in Halifax, Nova Scotia, setting off a blast that devastated the Canadian city. Finland declared its independence from Russia.

1922: The Anglo-Irish Treaty, which established the Irish Free State, came into force one year to the day after it was signed in London.

1923: A presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Calvin Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.

1947: Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry S. Truman.

1957: America’s first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit failed as Vanguard TV3 rose about four feet off a Cape Canaveral launch pad before crashing down and exploding.

1962: 37 coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Robena No. 3 Mine operated by U.S. Steel in Carmichaels, Penn.

1969: A free concert by The Rolling Stones at the Altamont Speedway in Alameda County, California, was marred by the deaths of four people, including one who was stabbed by a Hell’s Angel.

1973: House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew.

1989: 14 women were shot to death at the University of Montreal’s school of engineering by a man who then took his own life.

1998: In Venezuela, former Lt. Col. Hugo Chavez, who had staged a bloody coup attempt against the government six years earlier, was elected president.

2012: Shocking some of his closest Republican colleagues, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina announced he would resign his seat to head Washington’s conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. Marijuana possession became legal in Washington state.