1874 – Carl Fisher was born in Greensburg. He became an entrepreneur who helped build the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, inspired the Lincoln National Highway and pioneered the development of Florida.
1885 – Mark Twain and novelist George W. Cable presented joint readings at the Plymouth Church in downtown Indianapolis. A reviewer from the Indianapolis Sentinel reported that “the audience was in a high state of hilarity throughout the night.”
1901 – Alfred B. Guthrie, Jr., was born in Bedford. He grew up to become a novelist, screenwriter and historian. His novel The Way West won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1950. His screenplay for the motion picture Shane was nominated for an Academy Award.
1915 – President Woodrow Wilson was in Indianapolis to give a speech at Tomlinson Hall. Addressing party faithful, he said, “It is rather lonely living in Washington. I have been confined for two years at hard labor and even now feel that I am simply out on parole.”
1982 – Renowned conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein arrived at Indiana University to begin a six-week residency at the School of Music. “I’m very happy to be in Bloomington,” he said. “Even the cold weather should stimulate the creative work … I have come here to do.”
2017 – The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Indianapolis was designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior. Dedicated in 1902, it is the largest of the more than 200 Civil War Memorials in the nation.