Sherith Israel, the first synagogue in North America, is dedicated in 1790. In 1920 the Venus de Milo was discovered on the Aegean island of Milo. And in 1913 the 17th amendment to the US Constitution became law, requiring the direct election of Senators, as opposed to being selected by the state legislatures as had been the case prior.
In 1935 the Works Progress Administration is formed, providing federal work projects to alleviate widespread poverty and unemployment in the US. In 1959 there was a meeting of computer manufacturers, users, and university people to discuss the creation of a new programming language that would be known as COBOL. And in 1975 Frank Robinson managed the Cleveland Indians in his first game as the first African American major league baseball manager.
Joining the world community on this date were; American film star Mary Pickford(1892) , who also co-founded United Artists; Multiple Olympic gold medalist figure skater Sonja Henie, of Norway (1912); future First Lady Betty Ford (1918); and American journalist Seymour Hersch (1937).
We lost Elias Otis in 1861, who founded the Otis Elevator Company and also invented a brake that would prevent fatal rapid descents. We said farewell to Spanish painter Pablo Picasso (1973). American WWII general Omar Bradley (1981); Swiss-Italian pharmacologist Daniel Bovet (1992), who discovered antihistamines; and African American operatic singer Marian Anderson (1993), who delighted crowds of admirers at a concert at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 after she had been denied use of Constitution Hall by the so-called “Daughters of the American Revolution”.
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