In 1842, Dr. Crawford W. Long of Jefferson, Ga., first used ether as an anesthetic during an operation to remove a patient’s neck tumor.

In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million, a deal ridiculed by critics as “Seward’s Folly.”

In 1923, the Cunard liner RMS Laconia became the first passenger ship to circle the globe as it arrived in New York.

In 1959, a narrowly divided U.S. Supreme Court, in Bartkus v. Illinois, ruled that a conviction in state court following an acquittal in federal court for the same crime did not constitute double jeopardy.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley Jr.; also wounded were White House press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy Mccarthy and a District of Columbia police officer, Thomas Delahanty.