On this date in history:

In 1879, James and John Ritty of Dayton, Ohio, patented the first cash register, known as Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier.

In 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the steps leading to the tomb of Tutankhamen, ancient Egypt's child-king. Unlike other burial places in the Valley of the Kings, King Tut's tomb was largely untouched by looters.

In 1924, Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is elected the first female governor in the United States.

In 1924, voters overwhelmingly re-elected Calvin Coolidge president of the United States over Charles Davis.

In 1952, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president, ending 20 years of Democratic administrations.

In 1956, Soviet forces entered Budapest to crush an anti-communist revolt in Hungary. UPI correspondent Russell Jones described the conflict as the murder of a people.

In 1979, Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking about 90 people hostage, 63 of them Americans.

In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan was elected the 40th president of the United States in a landslide victory over incumbent Jimmy Carter.

In 1991, Imelda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines, returned home, ending more than five years of exile in the United States.

In 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 73, was assassinated by a Jewish extremist following a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

In 2002, Roman Catholic Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston apologized for assigning priests who may have been sexually abusive to parishes where they continued to have access to children.

In 2003, the elevation of a gay Episcopal priest to bishop prompted worldwide opposition, a Kenyan cleric said, The devil has clearly entered our church.

In 2006, Katharine Jefferts Schori was installed as the first female presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church.

In 2008, Barack Obama, a Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois, was the first African American elected president of the United States, taking 338 electoral votes to 161 for Republican John McCain.

In 2016, the Paris Agreement on climate change officially went into effect. One hundred and ninety-seven countries signed the accord promising to keep the global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels.

In 2019, more than 450 Oklahoma inmates were released from prison as part of the nation's largest commutation of sentences.

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