On Aug. 11, 1860, the nation’s first successful silver mill began operation near Virginia City, Nev.
In 1909 what is believed to be the first radio SOS sent by an American ship was transmitted from the liner Arapahoe after its engines were disabled off Cape Hatteras, N.C.
In 1919 industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie died in Lenox, Mass.; he was 84.
In 1921 writer Alex Haley, who chronicled the African-American experience with works such as “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and “Roots,” was born in Ithaca, N.Y.
In 1933 Jerry Falwell, the Baptist preacher who founded the Moral Majority, was born in Lynchburg, Va.
In 1962 the Soviet Union launched cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev on a 94-hour flight.
In 1965 rioting and looting broke out in the predominantly African-American Watts section of Los Angeles; ultimately, 34 people were killed in the violence.
In 1984 President Ronald Reagan joked during a voice test for a paid political radio address that he had “signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”
In 1992 the Mall of America, the biggest U.S. shopping mall, opened in Bloomington, Minn.
In 1995 President Bill Clinton banned all U.S. nuclear tests, calling his decision “the right step as we continue pulling back from the nuclear precipice.”
In 2003 Herb Brooks, who coached the U.S. Olympic hockey team to the “Miracle on Ice” victory over the Soviet Union in 1980, died in a car crash near Minneapolis; he was 66.
In 2004 Britain granted its first license for human cloning for the purpose of stem cell research.
