President John F. Kennedy was the first U.S. president to hold a live televised news conference. He discussed the release of two surviving US Air Force crewman by the Soviet Union after being captured when their jet aircraft was shot down on July 1, 1960. He also talked about an atomic test ban treaty and famine in the Congo.

The Tonight Show is a  late-night talk show that has aired on NBC-TV since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today. The first host of  the show was Steve Allen(above). Allen departed Tonight after NBC ordered him to concentrate all his efforts on his Sunday night variety program,The Steve Allen Show, hoping to combat CBS-TV and The Ed Sullivan Show’s dominance of the Sunday night ratings. Below is a clip from the first Tonight Show that aired on Monday night, September 27, 1954.

The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began when gold was discovered by James W. Marshall (above) at Sutter’s Mill, in northern California at Coloma. News of the discovery 
brought some 300,000 people to California from vast parts of the United States and abroad.Some became quite wealthy, but many returned home with little more than what
they started with. The effects of the Gold Rush resulted in San Francisco growing from a small settlement to a boomtown. A state constitution was written and California became  
a state in 1850 as part of the compromise of 1850. 

John Adam Belushi  was a comedian, actor, and musician, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC-TV comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live in the early 1970’s and for his roles in the films National Lampoon’s Animal House(1978)
and The Blues Brother(1980). He died of a drug overdose on March 5, 1982 at
the age of 33. John was the older brother of Jim Belushi.

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John Hancock  was a merchant, statesman, and prominent patriot of the American Revolution. He served as president of the Second Continental Congress and was the first and third Governor of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. As president of the Congress, Hancock was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence. Hancock died on October 8, 1793, at 56 years of age.