Dec. 31 history
In 1879, in the first public demonstration of his incandescent lightbulb, American inventor Thomas Alva Edison lights up a street in Menlo Park, New Jersey. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company ran special trains to Menlo Park on the day of the demonstration in response to public enthusiasm over the event.
In 1972, Roberto Clemente, future Hall of Fame baseball player, is killed along with four others when the cargo plane in which he is traveling crashes off the coast of Puerto Rico. Clemente was on his way to deliver relief supplies to Nicaragua following a devastating earthquake there a week earlier.
In 1984, Bernhard Goetz, the white man who shot four young Black men on a New York City subway train, turns himself in at a police station in Concord, New Hampshire. Goetz claimed that the men were trying to rob him and that he had acted in self-defense. At the time, New York was in the midst of a crime wave and Goetz was viewed by some people as a hero, an ordinary citizen fighting back against his supposed attackers.
In 1999, the United States, in accordance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, officially hands over control of the Panama Canal, putting the strategic waterway into Panamanian hands for the first time. Crowds of Panamanians celebrated the transfer of the 50-mile canal, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and officially opened when the SS Arcon sailed through on August 15, 1914. Since then, over one million ships have used the canal.
In 1999, Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the Russian Federation, resigns after eight years in office. The presidency passes to the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, a former intelligence officer who will quickly become the central figure in Russian politics and play a major role in global affairs in the new century. (History.com 12/31/23)
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