On this date:
In 1861, Texas voted to secede from the Union.
In 1893, inventor Thomas A. Edison completed work on the world's first motion picture studio, his "Black Maria," in West Orange, New Jersey.
In 1896, Puccini's opera "La Boheme" premiered in Turin.
In 1920, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police came into existence.
In 1943, one of America's most highly decorated military units of World War Two, the 442d Regimental Combat Team, made up almost entirely of Japanese-Americans, was authorized.
In 1946, Norwegian statesman Trygve Lie was chosen to be the first secretary-general of the United Nations.
In 1968, during the Vietnam War, Saigon's police chief (Nguyen Ngoc Loan) executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head in a scene captured in a famous news photograph.
In 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini received a tumultuous welcome in Tehran as he ended nearly 15 years of exile.
In 1979, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, whose prison sentence for bank robbery had been commuted by President Jimmy Carter, left a federal prison near San Francisco.
In 1991, 35 people were killed when a USAir jetliner crashed atop a commuter plane at Los Angeles International Airport.
Ten years ago: East Germany's Communist premier, Hans Modrow, appealed for negotiations with West Germany to forge a "united fatherland."
Five years ago: The Federal Reserve boosted interest rates by one-half of a percent, the seventh rate hike in a year. House Republicans pushed through a bill restricting the federal government's ability to impose unfunded mandates on states.
One year ago: With the promise of huge federal surpluses, President Clinton proposed a $1.77 trillion budget for fiscal 2000. Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky gave a deposition that was videotaped for senators weighing impeachment charges against President Clinton.
"When you look into a mirror you do not see your reflection -- your reflection sees you."
-- Anonymous.