Monday, October 24, 2011

TODAY IN HISTORY

OCTOBER 24
1901:Who'd have thunk it? The first person to successfully travel over Niagara Falls in a barrel is not your typical daredevil, but a schoolteacher from Bay City, Mich., celebrating her 63rd birthday — Annie Edson Taylor.

1861: California Chief Justice Stephen J. Field sends a message to President Abraham Lincoln across the newly finished transcontinental telegraph line, constructed by the Western Union Telegraph Company. The success of the telegraph as a means of cross-country communication will cause the Pony Express to close two days later.

1931: President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the six-lane George Washington Bridge, spanning the Hudson River between Manhattan and Fort Lee, N.J. The bridge opens to traffic the following day. Its length of 4,760 feet makes it the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time.
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