On this date...

Jefferson Davis

In 1691, New royal charter for Massachusetts now includes Maine and Plymouth.

In 1775, Winter is coming. Washington orders the quartermaster general to distribute 20 greatcoats to each brigade. These coats are for the sentinels—the men who stand watch through long, cold nights. The coats are to be handed from one guard to the next, a shared defense against the chill.

In 1777, Following their defeat at the Second Battle of Saratoga (Bemis Heights), British forces evacuated their positions near Freeman’s Farm on October 10, 1777, and started marching north toward Saratoga.

In 1829, Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay Canal formally open.

In 1835, Texans approve a resolution to create the Texas Rangers, a corps of armed and mounted lawmen designed to “range and guard the frontier between the Brazos and Trinity Rivers.”

In 1871, US President Ulysses S. Grant suspends habeas corpus in parts of South Carolina during prosecutions against Ku Klux Klan.

In 1888, Thomas Edison writes a letter to the US Patent Office describing his idea for "a device that would do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear".

In 1894, Ohio National Guard kills 3 lynchers while rescuing a Black man.

In 1904, Bank of Italy (Bank of America), founded by Amadeo Giannini, opens its doors in Jackson Square, San Francisco.

In 1919, The Radio Corporation of America was created.

In 1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted in Chicago of income tax evasion; he would be sentenced to 11 years in prison.

In 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.

In 1939, The American classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, starring James Stewart, had its world premiere; although it angered the political establishment, the drama won wide acclaim from the public and film industry.

In 1956, Chess "Game of the Century": 13-year-old Bobby Fischer defeats 1953 US Champion Donald Byrne in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament at the Marshall Chess Club in New York City.

In 1957, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visit the White House and meet President Dwight D. Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower.

In 1968, US men's 4 x 100 m freestyle relay team of Zac Zorn, Stephen Rerych, Ken Walsh, and Mark Spitz swims a world record of 3:31.7 to outclass the Soviet Union and Australia and win the gold medal at the Mexico City Olympics.

In 1974, President Gerald Ford explains to Congress why he had chosen to pardon his predecessor, Richard Nixon, rather than allow Congress to pursue legal action against the former president.

In 1978, US President Jimmy Carter presents Congressional Medal to American opera singer Marian Anderson.

In 1978, US President Jimmy Carter signs bill restoring US citizenship to Civil War era Confederacy President Jefferson Davis.

In 1979, US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating Department of Education.

In 1989, Earthquake near San Francisco kills 63. It was called the Loma Prieta Earthquake or the World Series Quake.

In 2007, President George W. Bush, raising Beijing's ire, presented the Dalai Lama with the Congressional Gold Medal and urged Chinese leaders to welcome the monk to Beijing.

In 2018, residents of the Florida Panhandle community of Mexico Beach who had fled Hurricane Michael a week earlier returned to find houses, businesses and campers ripped to shreds; the storm had killed at least 59 people and caused more than $25 billion in damage in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.