1925 – The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee as WSM Barn Dance.

1909 – Sergei Rachmaninoff makes the debut performance of his Piano Concerto No. 3, considered to be one of the most technically challenging piano concertos in the standard classical repertoire.

1895 – The first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago's Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours.

1893 – Women vote in a national election for the first time: the New Zealand general election.

1814 – The Times in London is for the first time printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, signaling the beginning of the availability of newspapers to a mass audience.

1811 – Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, premieres at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

1582 – In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond for their marriage licence.

1973 – A national speed limit is imposed on the Autobahn in Germany because of the 1973 oil crisis. The speed limit lasted only four months.

1971 – During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (aka D. B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.

1859 – Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, the anniversary of which is sometimes called "Evolution Day"

5th grade, Lincoln Elementary. A teacher came in teary eyed. I think she had taken our class teacher out of the room for what seemed like a long time. And then it was announced what had happened. Wow...50 years.

I do not remember hearing the news, though I was six years old, and I have a very good memory (I remember many things from when I was younger than that). I remember knowing, but not hearing it. Strange.

I was in class at Washington Elementary and the teacher was called out of the room and came back in some minutes later and told use Kennedy had been shot and they we were all being let out early. I didn't take the bus so my Mom was called to come get me. I remember how dead quiet it was at school as everyone got ready to leave. My Mom got me and we stopped at the Raggedy Ann grocery store across from the school and everyone in there was staring at a TV set up by the checkout.  Again dead quiet except for the TV. I still have the Chicago Tribune newspaper we got the next morning. 

I was in 6th grade.  It was still midmorning on the west coast.  We were doing the periodic desk cleaning out thing.  I remember our teacher, Mr. Menefee coming into the classroom with tears in his eyes and him telling us that he had been shot and had died.  He told us to finish up our cleaning and that we were going to be sent home shortly for the rest of the day.

I remember what the classroom looked like as I thought about it falling asleep last night.  I remember the weather that day.  It was a gorgeous clear blue, warm sunny day.  When we were finally told it was time to go, I grabbed my skateboard and headed to the bus stop at the corner of Euclid and Marin up in the Berkeley Hills and took the #7 up to Grizzly Peak Blvd and Shasta road.  It was only a dime then.  My buddy Les was the driver of the bus I caught and it was a very quiet ride up the road on the empty midday bus.

Got off the bus at the stop in front of what was Charles Schultz's residence at the time, said goodbye to Les and hopped on my skateboard and began the 2 mile descent down Shasta with the view of the Bay and the Bridges and of course, Alcatraz Island.  It was a very slow and sad ride home that day.  Got home and we all watched the tele as a family the rest of the day.

At the young age of 11, I knew life was going to change in someway from this day on, but had no idea what to expect.  But you could see it in everyone's eyes. 

I was a third grader, and riding on the school bus that afternoon the usual noise was drawn short by the bus driver who said that everyone should be silent because the President was assassinated that day. I remember wondering what assassinated meant.

Some days later My Grandfather had a fatal heart attack while driving his little Simca. I remember wondering what a heart attack was...

2005 – Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany.

1995 – Toy Story is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.

1987 – Two Chicago television stations are hijacked by an unknown pirate dressed as Max Headroom.

1954 – The Humane Society of the United States is founded.

1869 – In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched – one of the last clippers ever built, and the only one still surviving today.