GMT: Sunday Soaker

Mornin'

1836 – Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.

1879 – Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb (it lasted 13½ hours before burning out).

1907 – Panic of 1907: A run on the stock of the Knickerbocker Trust Company sets events in motion that will lead to a depression.

1934 – In East Liverpool, Ohio, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents shoot and kill notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd.

1957 – Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.

1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the Communist nation.

1966 – The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A' Go-Go).

1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.

1972 – Vietnam War: In Saigon, Henry Kissinger and South Vietnamese President Nguy?n Van Thi?u meet to discuss a proposed cease-fire that had been worked out between Americans and North Vietnamese in Paris.

1976 – Red Dye No. 4 is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs.

1981 – The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority votes to decertify the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) for its strike the previous August.

1983 – Two correctional officers are killed by inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. The incident inspires the Supermax model of prisons.

2001 – Grand Theft Auto III was released, popularizing a genre of open-world, action-adventure video games as well as spurring controversy around violence in video games.

2005 – Tropical Storm Alpha forms in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms.