This day in history

[December 28, 2010]  (AP)  Today is Tuesday, Dec. 28, the 362nd day of 2010. There are three days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On Dec. 28, 1832, John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down because of differences with President Andrew Jackson.

On this date:

In 1694, Queen Mary II of England died after more than five years of joint rule with her husband, King William III.

In 1846, Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the Union.

In 1856, the 28th president of the United States, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, was born in Staunton, Va.

In 1897, the play "Cyrano de Bergerac," by Edmond Rostand, premiered in Paris.

In 1908, a major earthquake followed by a tsunami devastated the Italian city of Messina, killing at least 70,000 people.

In 1917, the New York Evening Mail published "A Neglected Anniversary," a facetious, as well as fictitious, essay by H.L. Mencken recounting the history of bathtubs in America.

In 1944, the musical "On the Town," with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, opened on Broadway.

In 1945, Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.

In 1973, Alexander Solzhenitsyn published "Gulag Archipelago," an expose (eks-poh-SAY') of the Soviet prison system.

In 1989, Alexander Dubcek (DOOB'-chek), the former Czechoslovak Communist leader who was deposed in a Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968, was named president of the country's parliament.

Ten years ago: The Census Bureau released its first numbers from the 2000 national count; they showed that America's population had risen to 281,421,906, up 13.2 percent from 1990.

Five years ago: Former top Enron Corp. accountant Richard Causey pleaded guilty to securities fraud and agreed to help pursue convictions against Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling. (Causey was later sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison.)

One year ago: Al-Qaida in Yemen claimed responsibility for an attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner. A bomb blast killed at least 44 people in a Shiite procession in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi. In Argentina, two men turned away from Buenos Aires were wed in Ushuaia (oo-SWY'-ah), the world's southernmost city, in Latin America's first gay marriage.

Today's birthdays: Comic book creator Stan Lee is 88. Former United Auto Workers union president Owen Bieber is 81. Actor Martin Milner is 79. Actress Nichelle Nichols is 78. Actress Dame Maggie Smith is 76. Rock singer-musician Charles Neville is 72. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., is 66. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., is 64. Rock singer-musician Edgar Winter is 64. Actor Denzel Washington is 56. Country singer Joe Diffie is 52. Country musician Mike McGuire (Shenandoah) is 52. Actor Chad McQueen is 50. Country singer-musician Marty Roe (Diamond Rio) is 50. Actor Malcolm Gets is 46. Actor Mauricio Mendoza is 41. Comedian Seth Meyers is 37. Actor Brendan Hines is 34. Rhythm-and-blues singer John Legend is 32. Actress Sienna Miller is 29. Actor Thomas Dekker is 23. Actress Mackenzie Rosman is 21. Pop singer David Archuleta (TV: "American Idol") is 20.

Thought for today: "Let no one underestimate the need of pity. We live in a stony universe whose hard, brilliant forces rage fiercely." -- Theodore Dreiser, American author (born 1871, died this date in 1945)

[Associated Press]

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