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In 1979, a patrol plane used by Rangers at the Wrangell-St. Elias National Monument was destroyed by fire. Arson was suspected.
In the nation
In 1789, Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.
In 1814, an American fleet scored a decisive victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812.
In 1857, the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place in present-day southern Utah as a 120-member Arkansas immigrant party was slaughtered by Mormon settlers.
In 1941, Charles A. Lindbergh sparked charges of anti-Semitism with a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, in which he said "the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration" were trying to draw the United States into World War II.
In 1967, "The Carol Burnett Show" premiered on CBS.
In 1974, an Eastern Airlines DC-9 crashed during a landing attempt in Charlotte, N.C., killing 71 of the people on board.
In 1997, the Army issued a searing indictment of itself, asserting that "sexual harassment exists throughout the Army, crossing gender, rank and racial lines."
In 2001, in the single worst act of terrorism committed on U.S. soil, nearly 3,000 people died when two hijacked jetliners crashed into New York's World Trade Center, causing the twin towers to fall, a commandeered jetliner smashed into the Pentagon and a fourth hijacked plane crashed in western Pennsylvania. The day is marked as Patriot Day.
In 2002, with words of comfort and resolve, President Bush joined the nation in remembering "how it began and who fell first" in the terrorist attacks one year earlier.
In 2006, the nation paused to remember the victims of 9/11 on the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. In a prime-time address, President Bush invoked the memory of the victims as he argued for a continued military campaign in Iraq.