In 1844, Mormon leader Joseph Smith was killed by a mob in Carthage, Ill.
In 1847, New York and Boston were linked by telegraph wires.
In 1880, author-leecturer Helen Keller, who lived most of her life without sight or hearing, was born in Tuscumbia, Ala.
In 1942, the FBI announced the capture of eight Nazi saboteurs who had been put ashore from a submarine on New York's Long Island.
In 1950, President Harry S. Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean conflict following a call from the U.N. Security Council for member nations to help South Korea repel an invasion by North Korea.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy spent his first full day in Ireland, the land of his ancestors.