This Day…

1960 – 1st electronic wrist watch placed on sale, NYC

1881 – Levi P Morton, US ambassador to France drives first rivet in Statue of Liberty

1942 – “Now, Voyager” film directed by Irving Rapper, and starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains, premieres in New York; wins 3 Academy Awards

1917 – Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for Germany during WWI at Vincennes near Paris

1934 – Bruno Hauptmann is indicted for the murder of Charles Lindbergh‘s son

1952 – Agatha Christie‘s play “The Mousetrap” opens in London (still running)

1902 – Beatrix Potter‘s “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” is published by Frederick Warne & Co. in London

1868 – “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott is published in America by Roberts Brothers of Boston

1955 – American actor and cultural icon James Dean is killed in a car crash aged 24

1852 – George Aiken’s play “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” an adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe‘s famous anti-slavery novel premieres in Troy, New York