This day in history

Some notable historical events that happened today include:

1846 -  Elias Howe received the first locksmith sewing machine patent in the US. Patent No. 4,750 describes a machine designed to sew fabric together in an upright position. He had to go to court to defend his patent when others started copying it

1953 -  Swanson introduced the first TV dinner. It was a Thanksgiving meal of turkey, cornbread stuffing, frozen peas and sweet potatoes packaged in a tray like those used (at the time) for airline food service

1960 -  Abebe Bikila won gold running barefoot in the marathon at the Rome Olympics. He was the first Sub-Saharan African to win the prize and in the following weeks was promoted to corporal in Emperor Haile Selassie's Imperial Bodyguard 

1984 -  Jeopardy! aired it's first episode in it's daily syndicated version. The show draws between 9 and 13 million viewers weekly with the numbers still growing

1990 -  the Ellis Island Immigration Museum opened to the public at the original location

2016 -  The University of Tennessee Volunteers and the Virginia Tech Hokies had record-breaking attendance of 130,045 people at the Bristol Motor Speedway. Tennessee won 45-24

2019 -  Margaret Atwood published The Testaments, the sequel to her 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale

Some interesting birthdays include:

Alice Brown Davis (1852) - appointed as the first woman cheif of the Seminole Tribe by President Warren G. Harding in 1919. She served for 16 years, until her death in 1935

Laura Cornelius Kellogg (1880) - founder of the Society of American Indians and not affiliated with the breakfast cereal

Dorothy Hill (1907) - first woman elected president of the Australian Academy of Science

Arnold Palmer (1929) - golfer best known for being ordered as a drink (tea and lemonade)

Rin Tin Tin (1918) - charismatic German Shepherd who starred in several films in the 1920s. Was rescued by an American soldier during WWI along with his sister Nannette

Charles Kuralt (1934) - CBS's youngest news correspondent 

Roger Maris (1934) - set the MLB record for single-season home runs with 61 home run hits

Mary Oliver (1935)

Colin Firth (1960)