On this date in history:

In 1791, Georgetown University, in what is now Washington, D.C., opened as the first Roman Catholic college in the United States.

In 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea begins with the burning of Atlanta.

In 1920, the first assembly of the League of Nations was called to order in Geneva, Switzerland. The league dissolved after 1946 and was replaced by the United Nations.

In 1926, the NBC radio network made its debut. NBC sold the network to Westwood one in 1987.

In 1943, Heinrich Himmler ordered that Romany be placed in Nazi concentration camps. Up to 500,000 Romany died during the Holocaust.

In 1969, more than 500,000 people demonstrated in Washington against the Vietnam War.

In 1984, 5-week-old Baby Fae died after her body rejected the baboon heart she had lived with for 20 days at California's Loma Linda University Medical Center.

In 1987, 27 people were killed in the crash of a Continental Airlines DC-9 jet taking off from Denver in a snowstorm.

In 2004, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell submitted his resignation.

In 2007, Cyclone Sidr, with winds of more than 150 mph, slammed into the southwestern Bangladesh coast, killing more than 3,400 people. Tens of thousands were injured and 1 million people were homeless.

In 2010, a five-story building, in New Delhi that housed migrant workers collapsed killing at least 58 people, with 65 others hurt and many more feared buried in debris.

In 2010, a fire in a high-rise Shanghai apartment building, primarily a home for teachers, killed more than 58 people and injured dozens.

In 2012, Turkish Foreign Minister Agmet Davutoglu announced Turkey had joined France and several Arab states in officially recognizing a coalition of rebels as legitimate leaders in war-torn Syria.

In 2017, Leonardo's da Vinci's Salvator Mundi sold for a world-record $450 million in a Christie's New York auction.

Copyright 2018 by United Press International