It was on this day in 1905 that 110 acres of land in southern Nevada was auctioned off by the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. The purchased land was near a fort that had been established 50 years earlier by Mormon missionaries but was abandoned in 1857. The railroad company was wanting a refueling & stopover point for their trains, and several business to service travelers quickly sprang up. Six years later the population reached 800 people, and the City of Las Vegas was officially incorporated.
The earliest event Wiki mentions that occurred on this day is “1252 – Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad exstirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition” and the most recent is “2010 – Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo.“
A few other things that also happened on this day are:
1862 – President Abraham Lincoln creates what will later become the USDA.
1911 – US Supreme Court rules that Standard Oil is a monopoly.
1930 – The first airline stewardess reports for work.
1948 – Six different nations invade Israel, starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
1970 – Two students in Mississippi are killed by police during student protests.
1988 – Soviets start to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Happy Birthday to Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Desmond Howard, Emmitt Smith, and Wavy Gravy.