SANDY KOZEL

In 1876: __Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call
in his Boston laboratory, summoning his assistant, Thomas A.
Watson, from the next room.

CARLATA BRADLEY

 
On this day in 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers (seated) for the Soviet KGB spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abel (right) being held by the U.S. 

Francis Gary Powers and a U2 recon aircraft .

The Glienicke bridge just after the Powers swap.

   
    
     
           SANDY KOZEL

On this day in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws that had
been restricting abortions during the first six months of pregnancy. The case
(Roe vs. Wade) legalized abortion. The Court ruled, in a 7-2 decision, that
a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

This is a 1972 photo of the United States Supreme court who decided on Roe
V. Wade. From left, front row : Associate Justice Potter Stewart; William O. Douglas;Chief Justice Warren Berger, Associate Justice William J. Brennan Jr.
and Byron A. White. Back row: Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.;Thurgood 
Marshall; Harry A. Blackmun; and William H. Rehnquist. (AP)

Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973)

Lyndon Johnson, often referred to by the initials LBJ, was an American
politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from
1963 to 1969. Formerly the 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963, he
assumed the presidency following the assassination of President John
F. Kennedy.

ROSS SIMPSON

Charles Robert Darwin ( February 12, 1809 – April 19, 1832)

On this day in 1831, English naturlist Charles Darwin set out on a
voyage to the Pacific aboard the HMS Beagle. His discoveries
during the voyage helped him form the basis of his theories on
evolution.

HMS Beagle, a 10-gun, Cherokee-class brig sloop of the Royal
Navy’s survey service, sets sail from Plymouth, England on its
second voyage as a survey vessel. On board, at the invitation
of Beagle captain Robert FitzRoy, is a young biologist called
Charles Darwin.

Hailed by many critics as Eugene O’Neill’s finest work, The Iceman Cometh 
opened at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway. The play, about desperate
tavern bums clinging to illusion as a remedy for despair, was the last O’Neill
play to be produced on Broadway before the author’s death in 1953. Like
many of his other works, the play drew on O’Neill’s firsthand experiences
with all-night dive bars and desperate characters.