On this date in history:

In 1759, George Washington married widow Martha Dandridge Custis.

In 1838, in Morristown, N.J., Samuel F.B. Morse and his partner, Alfred Vail, publicly demonstrated their new invention, the telegraph, for the first time.

In 1912, New Mexico joined the United States as the 47th state.

In 1914, the day after the Ford Motor Co. announced the $5 Day, more than 10,000 men jockeyed for places as each sought to become one of the army of 22,000 workers who would benefit under the $10,000,000 profit-sharing plan.

In 1919, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, died at the age of 60.

In 1925, Paavo Nurmi, known as the Flying Finn and regarded as the greatest runner of his day, set world records in the mile run and 5,000-meter run within the space of 1 hour in his first U.S. appearance, an indoor meet at New York City's new Madison Square Garden.

In 1942, a Pan American Airways plane arrived in New York, completing the first around-the-world flight by a commercial airliner.

In 1950, Britain formally recognized the communist government of China.

In 1961, Vice President Richard Nixon made official that he had been defeated by Sen. John F. Kennedy in one of the closest presidential elections in history.

In 1984, the first test-tube quadruplets, all boys, were born in Melbourne, Australia.

In 1993, dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev and jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie died. Nureyev, who was 54, died of cardiac complications. (It was later confirmed that he had AIDS.) Gillespie, 75, died of cancer.

In 1994, American skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the right knee in an attack that forced her out of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. The assault was traced to four men with links to her leading rival, Tonya Harding.

In 1999, an agreement ended a six-month player lockout by owners of National Basketball Association teams.

In 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was arrested in connection to the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964. He was found guilty on June 21, 2005, the 41st anniversary of the crime, and sentenced to 60 years in prison.

In 2010, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only officially recognized survivor of both the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that led to the Japanese surrender in World War II, died of stomach cancer at age 93.

In 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama named William Daley, a Wall Street executive, to be his chief of staff.

In 2013, Syrian President Bashar Assad, standing defiantly against pressure to step down, called on Syrians to fight rebels, which he deemed enemies of God. His speech was broadcast nationally.

In 2014, Martin Walsh became Boston's first new mayor in more than two decades, succeeding Thomas Menino.

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