1758 - Mustard was advertised for the first time in America.
1764 - The city of St. Louis was established.
1799 - Printed ballots were authorized for use in elections in the state of Pennsylvania.
1842 - Adhesive postage stamps were used for the first time by the City Dispatch Post (Office) in New York City.
1879 - U.S. President Hayes signed a bill that allowed female attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
1898 - The USS Maine sank when it exploded in Havana Harbor for unknown reasons. More than 260 crew members were killed.
1900 - The British threaten to use natives in their war with the Boers.
1903 - Morris and Rose Michtom, Russian immigrants, introduced the first teddy bear in America.
1932 - George Burns and Gracie Allen debuted as regulars on "The Guy Lombardo Show" on CBS radio.
1933 - U.S. President-elect Franklin Roosevelt escaped an assination attempt in Miami. Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak was killed in the attack.
1942 - During World War II, Singapore surrendered to the Japanese.
1943 - "My True Story" was heard for the first time on ABC radio.
1946 - Edith Houghton, at age 33, was signed as a baseball scout by the Philadelphia Phillies becoming the first female scout in the major leagues.
1953 - The first American to win the women’s world figure skating championship was 17-year-old Tenley Albright.
1961 - A Boeing 707 crashed in Belgium killing 73 people.
1962 - CBS-TV bought the exclusive rights to college football games from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for a figure of $10,200,000.
1965 - Canada displayed its new red and white maple leaf flag. The flag was to replace the old Red Ensign standard.
1982 - During a storm, the Ocean Ranger, a drilling rig, sank off the coast of Newfoundland. 84 men were killed.
1985 - The Center for Disease Control reported that more than half of all nine-year-olds in the U.S. showed no sign of tooth decay.
1989 - After nine years of intervention, the Soviet Union announced that the remainder of its troops had left Afghanistan.
1991 - The leaders of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland signed the Visegard agreement, in which they pledged to cooperate in transforming thier countties to free-market economies.
1995 - The FBI arrested Kevin Mitnick and charged him with cracking security in some of the nation's most protected computers. He served five years in jail.
2002 - U.S. President George W. Bush approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a site for long-term disposal of radioactive nuclear waste.