History Today

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on December 3rd. Andrew Jackson: His face graces every one of the nearly 9 billion 20-dollar bills in circulation On this day in 1828, Jackson was elected the seventh U.S. president. His election marked a turning point in American politics, as the center of political power shifted from East to West, and the political party system as we know it today began to form.

Happy Thanksgiving, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on November 28th.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in HIstory. Here’s what happened on December 2nd. In the wake of the declaration by 11,000 scientists of a global climate emergency, we look back to this day in 1970, and the official formation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency was created by the executive order of then-President Richard Nixon, amid growing recognition of the impact of human activity on the environment.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on December 1st. Rosa Parks. Her name has become synonymous with bravery, and it all started on this day in 1955, when the 42-year-old African-American seamstress refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus to a white man. That decision helped spark the American Civil Rights Movement. The local black community soon organized a bus boycott, led by a young Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on November 30th. Think you have rotten luck? On this day in 1954, the first modern instance of a meteorite hitting a human occurred in Alabama. The meteorite crashed through the roof of a house and into a living room, bounced off a radio and struck a woman on her hip. The victim, a Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges, was sleeping on a couch at the time of impact. The space rock was a sulfide meteorite weighing 8.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on November 29th. For decades, there has been speculation about what really happened on this day in 1981, when 43-year-old actress Natalie Wood drowned off the coast of California’s Catalina Island. Wood had been boating with her husband, actor Robert Wagner, at the time of her death.

"Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on November 27th. It’s that time of year when it’s easy to put on a few extra pounds--even, apparently, when you're the president. On this day in 1911, then-White House housekeeper Elizabeth Jaffrey wrote in her diary about a conversation she’d had with President William Howard Taft and his wife about the president’s ever-expanding waistline.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on November 26th. We have two more days before Thanksgiving, yet the holiday shopping season has already begun.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on November 25th. The last 150 or so years might have gone a little differently had a plan launched on this day in 1864 been successful. That was when, in an effort to prolong the Civil War and convince Abraham Lincoln to negotiate, Confederate General Robert E. Lee engaged a small group of secret operatives to set fire to New York City.

Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on November 24th. It’s a mystery that may never be solved: Who was DB Cooper? On this day in 1971, a man going by that name hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines 727, demanding $200,000 and four parachutes. He then jumped from the plane at about 10,000 feet in a raging thunderstorm over Washington state, wearing only a thin suit, a raincoat, and sunglasses. No trace of Cooper was found during a massive search of the area.