In 1824, the presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives when a deadlock developed between John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. (Adams ended up the winner.)

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln sent his Second Annual Message to Congress, in which he called for the abolition of slavery, and went on to say, “Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”

In 1866, Welsh surveyor Sir George Everest, 79, whose name had been conferred upon the mountain in Nepal by the Royal Geographical Society over his objections, died in London.

In 1921, the Navy flew the first non-rigid dirigible to use helium; the C-7 traveled from Hampton Roads, Virginia, to Washington, D.C.

In 1934, Soviet communist official Sergei M. Kirov, an associate of Josef Stalin, was assassinated in Leningrad, resulting in a massive purge.

In 1942, nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States.

In 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus; the incident sparked a yearlong boycott of the buses by blacks.

In 1965, an airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States began in which thousands of Cubans were allowed to leave their homeland.

In 1969, the U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II.

In 1973, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, died in Tel Aviv at age 87.

In 1989, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

The Associated Press