In 1791, The U.S. Congress enacted legislation forbidding slave trading with foreign nations.

In 1941, the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River began producing electric power for the Pacific Northwest.

In 1945, representatives from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen met in Cairo to establish the Arab League.

In 1968, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson recalled U.S. Army Gen. William Westmoreland as commander of U.S. troops in Vietnam and made him Army chief of staff. Gen. Creighton Abrams took over in Saigon.

In 1974, the U.S. Senate passed and sent to the states for ratification the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a measure popularly known as the Equal Rights Amendment. However, the required number of states failed to ratify it before the deadline.

In 1987, Chad troops drove Libyan forces from a key airstrip in northern Chad, apparently ending Moammar Gadhafi's seven-year occupation. The Libyans abandoned $500 million worth of Soviet-made tanks and airplanes.

In 1992, 27 people were killed when a USAir plane bound for Cleveland skidded off a runway at New York's LaGuardia Airport during a snowstorm and landed in the bay.

In 1997, Comet Hale-Bopp made its closest approach to Earth -- about 122 million miles.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II visited a Palestinian refugee camp and declared the conditions there to be degrading.

In 2003, as the war in Iraq gained momentum, a U.S. Army maintenance convoy made a wrong turn and was ambushed. Eleven soldiers were killed and seven, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch, were captured.

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