1883 – Chauncey Rose opened the Polytechnic Institute at 13th and Locust streets in Terre Haute. There were 25 students in the first class. In 1917, the school moved to its current location on the east side of the city on U.S. 40. The school name was changed to Rose-Hulman in 1971 to reflect the contributions of Tony Hulman and his family.
1913 – Thousands marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., in a grand women’s suffrage parade. Nine bands, four mounted brigades, 24 floats, and over 5,000 marchers formed the procession. The banner for the Indiana division was carried by Mary Booth Jameson of Indianapolis. The Hoosiers were greeted at the Congress Hotel by Araminta Kern, wife of Indiana’s United States Senator John Kern.
1920 – Indiana education leaders announced that the 30-year school consolidation plan had reduced the number of one-room schools from over 8,000 to less than 5,000. It was noted that Marion County had only nine one-room schools still in operation, while many rural counties, such as Harrison, Monroe, Orange and Crawford, still had over 125 each.
1933 – The Indiana General Assembly adopted the cardinal as the official state bird. Also known as the redbird, the Richmondena cardinalis is the official feathered friend of six other states: Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. The bright red males are easily identified, especially in winter. Cardinals love Indiana and nest in the Hoosier State the year-around.
1967 – It was “Robert Wise Day” at the Lyric Theater in Indianapolis. The legendary motion picture producer and director, from Winchester, Ind., was made a “Sagamore of the Wabash” by Governor Roger Branigin. Wise won Oscars for directing West Side Story and The Sound of Music. As a young man, he got off to a good start in Hollywood when Orson Welles chose him to serve as editor of Citizen Kane.
1998 – Adrian Marks died in Clinton County at the age of 81. A World War II Navy pilot, he disobeyed standing orders and landed his PBY-5A patrol plane on choppy ocean waters to rescue survivors of the USS Indianapolis. The sailors had been in the shark-infested sea for three days, after their ship had been sunk by a Japanese torpedo.