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tral Africa.
• In 1919, the American Legion opened its first national convention in Minneapolis.
• In 1928, Japanese Emperor Hirohito (hee-roh-hee-toh) was formally enthroned, almost two years after his ascension.
• In 1938, Kate Smith first sang Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" on her CBS radio program. Turkish statesman Mustafa Kemal Ataturk died in Istanbul at age 57.
• In 1942, Winston Churchill delivered a speech in London in which he said, "I have not become the King's First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."
• In 1951, customer-dialed long-distance telephone service began as Mayor M. Leslie Denning of Englewood, N.J., called Alameda, Calif., Mayor Frank Osborne without operator assistance.
• In 1954, the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, depicting the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, was dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Arlington, Va.
• In 1961, the satirical war novel "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller was first published by Simon & Schuster.
• In 1969, the children's educational program "Sesame Street" made its debut on National Educational Television (later PBS).
• In 1975, the ore-hauling ship SS Edmund Fitzgerald and its crew of 29 mysteriously sank during a storm in Lake Superior with the loss of all on board.
• In 1982, the newly finished Vietnam Veterans Memorial was opened to its first visitors in Washington, D.C., three days before its dedication. Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev died at age 75.
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• Ten years ago: Bush administration officials promised "zero tolerance" if Saddam Hussein refused to comply with international calls to disarm. About a dozen tornadoes killed 36 people in Tennessee, Ohio, Alabama, Mississippi and Pennsylvania.
• Five years ago: Six U.S. troops died in an insurgent ambush, making 2007 the deadliest year for American forces in Afghanistan since 2001. During an Ibero-American summit in Santiago, Chile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez kept interrupting Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as he defended his predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, whom Chavez had repeatedly referred to as a "fascist"; Spain's King Juan Carlos finally told Chavez, "Why don't you shut up?" A stagehands strike shut down most Broadway shows, with curtains rising again 19 days later. Author Norman Mailer, 84, died in New York. The mother of rapper

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