On this day in 1913,the first modern crossword puzzle was  
published in the "New York World," part of a set of what the
paper called "mental exercises." Clues included: "sunk in
mud," "the fibre of the gomuti palm" and "such and nothing
more."

Arthur Wynne (June 22, 1871 – January 14, 1945)

At a news conference, President Richard Nixon said that the
Vietnam War is coming to a “conclusion as a result of the
plan that we have instituted.”

Nixon had announced at a conference in Midway in June that
the United States would be following a new program he termed “Vietnamization.”

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963)

The Hughes Flying Boat, at one time the largest aircraft ever built,
was piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight
in Long Beach Harbor, California.

Built with laminated birch and spruce (hence the nickname the
Spruce Goose) the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan
longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than
700 men to battle.

Howard Hughes was a successful Hollywood movie producer when
he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932. He personally
tested cutting-edge aircraft of his own design and in 1937 broke the transcontinental flight-time record.

Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (1905 – 1976)

The Spruce Goose is now on display at the Evergreen
Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

In one of the greatest upsets in presidential election
history, Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman
defeats his Republican challenger, Governor Thomas
E. Dewey of New York, by just over two million popular
votes.

       
In the days preceding the vote, political analysts and
polls were so behind Dewey that on election night,
long before all the votes were counted, the Chicago
Tribune published an early edition with the banner
headline above, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.”          

Harry Truman (left) and his political rival Thomas Dewey.