This day in history for Dec. 31 to Jan. 8

Dec. 31

1759: Arthur Guinness founded his famous brewery at St. James's Gate in Dublin.

1879: Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, N.J.

1977: Officials at Northwestern Bell said that long distance call attempts on Christmas Day reached 224,665. They were unable to determine how many of these calls connected. These direct dial calls were up 18% from the previous year.

1985: Singer Rick Nelson, 45, and six other people were killed when fire broke out aboard a DC-3 that was taking the group to a New Year's Eve performance in Dallas.

1999: Aberdonian Josh Huepel quarterbacked for the Oklahoma Sooners in the Independence Bowl game against Mississippi.

Jan. 1

1863: President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in rebel states were free.

1913: The U.S. Parcel Post system went into operation.

1953: Country singer Hank Williams Sr., 29, was discovered dead in the back seat of his car during a stop in Oak Hill, W.Va., while he was being driven to a concert date in Canton, Ohio.

1959: Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries overthrew Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.

1976: South Dakota motorists had new license plates to celebrate the nation's bicentennial. The new plates showed blue numbers and letters, red South Dakota, and a blue Mount Rushmore insignia. Drivers used those plates for five years rather than having to purchase new plates each year.

1984: The breakup of AT&T took place as the telecommunications giant was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.

Jan. 2

1959: The Soviet Union launched its space probe Luna 1, the first manmade object to fly past the moon, its apparent intended target.

1973: Gov. Richard Kneip was sworn for a second term as South Dakota's highest elected official. Kneip was the first Democrat since the 1930s to win a second gubernatorial term.

1977: Singing star Oliver would be the featured entertainment at the 1977 Snow Queen contest. His hits include “Good Morning Starshine” and “Jean.”

2019: Sisseton native “Mean Gene” Okerlund, who interviewed pro wrestling superstars Jesse “The Body” Ventura, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and Hulk Hogan, died at age 76. Okerlund got his start in the Twin Cities-based American Wrestling Association.

Jan. 3

1521: Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Leo X.

1938: The March of Dimes campaign to fight polio was organized.

1966: Northwestern Bell Telephone Co. introduced its new “push-button” telephone in the Aberdeen area. The Touch-Tone phone featured a soft musical tone for each number on the keypad.

1967: Jack Ruby, the man who shot and killed accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, died in a Dallas hospital.

1977: The Rapid City Journal released its first high school basketball ratings for the new year. In Class AA Aberdeen Central was ranked No. 1 with a 6-0 season to that point; in Class B, Webster was the top team with a 7-0 record.

2018: Agtegra Cooperative was announced as the name of the new co-op formed when members of North Central Farmers Elevator and Wheat Growers voted to merge. The merger was to take effect in February.

Jan. 4

1948: Burma (now called Myanmar) became independent of British rule.

1964: Northern State Teacher's College announced that its 1964 “traveling classroom” would be a field trip to Nova Scotia and the New York World's Fair.

1974: President Richard M. Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.

1977: Dave Graf, executive director of the YMCA, spoke to the Kiwanis Sunrisers Club about the dangers of heart disease.

2007: Nancy Pelosi was elected the first female speaker of the House as Democrats took control of Congress.

Jan. 5

1925: Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming became the first female governor in U.S. history.

1949: In his State of the Union address, President Harry S. Truman labeled his administration the Fair Deal.

1964: Presentation Junior College hosted a six-week lecture series about communism.

1970: The soap opera ''All My Children'' premiered on ABC-TV.

2019: Kristi Noem was sworn-in to become the first female governor in South Dakota history.

Jan. 6

1838: Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail gave the first successful public demonstration of their telegraph in Morristown, N.J.

1964: Dennis Maloney, Brown County State's Attorney, spoke to the St. Mary's Home and School Association about the problems of juvenile delinquency in Aberdeen.

1974: The Aberdeen Salvation Army raised $5,424.43 in its annual Christmas appeal. Nine service clubs and many individuals served as volunteer bell ringers.

1994: Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the leg by an assailant at Detroit's Cobo Arena; four men, including the ex-husband of Kerrigan's rival, Tonya Harding, went to prison for their roles in the attack. (Harding, who denied knowing about plans for the attack, received probation after pleading guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution.)

2000: Congress formally certified George W. Bush the winner of the bitterly contested 2000 presidential election.

2014: Almost 85% (144) of the K-12 schools in South Dakota were closed due to the 40-below and worse wind chills that gripped much of the state.

Jan. 7

1894: One of the earliest motion picture experiments took place at the Thomas Edison studio in West Orange, N.J., as Fred Ott was filmed taking a pinch of snuff and sneezing.

1953: President Harry S. Truman announced in his State of the Union message to Congress that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb.

1961: U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., was born in Murdo.

1989: Emperor Hirohito of Japan died in Tokyo at age 87; he was succeeded by his son, Crown Prince Akihito.

2006: Jill Carroll, a freelance journalist for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped and her translator shot dead in Baghdad. (Carroll was freed almost three months later.)

Jan. 8

1918: Mississippi became the first state to ratify the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which established Prohibition.

1935: Rock 'n' roll legend Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Miss.

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a ''War on Poverty'' in his State of the Union address.

1982: American Telephone and Telegraph settled the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.

1992: President George H.W. Bush collapsed during a state dinner in Tokyo; White House officials said Bush was suffering from stomach flu.

Sources: American News archives, Dacotah Prairie Museum and The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: This day in history for Dec. 31 to Jan. 8