Today in History.....January 3

On this day in …

* 1777, Gen. George Washington's army routed the British in the Battle of Princeton, N.J.

* 1868, the Meiji Restoration re-established the authority of Japan's emperor and heralded the fall of the military rulers known as "shoguns."

* 1938, the March of Dimes campaign to fight polio was organized

* 1947, congressional proceedings were televised for the first time as viewers in Washington, Philadelphia and New York got to see some of the opening ceremonies of the 80th Congress

* 1959, President Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Alaska to the Union as the 49th state

* 1961, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba

* 1967, Jack Ruby, the man who shot accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, died in a Dallas hospital

* 1990, ousted Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega surrendered to U.S.
forces, 10 days after taking refuge in the Vatican's diplomatic mission

* 1993, President Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a historic nuclear missile-reduction treaty in Moscow

* 2000, the last new daily "Peanuts" strip by Charles Schulz ran in 2,600 newspapers

* 2004, President Bush tapped his father, former President Bush, and former President Clinton to help raise tsunami relief funds