On this date in . . .

1653: New Amsterdam was incorporated. Today it's called New York City.

1876: The National Baseball League was formed, with teams in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Louisville, and Hartford.

1881: The first formal church youth organization was established in the Williston Congregational Church in Portland, Maine. Called "Christian Endeavor," it became the prototype of the modern denominational "youth fellowship."

1886: Punxutawney, Pennsylvania, observed its first Groundhog Day. The annual trek to Gobbler's Knob started in 1887.

1936: The five charter members of the new Baseball Hall of Fame were announced at Cooperstown, New York. Of 226 ballots cast, Ty Cobb received 222 votes, Babe Ruth 215, Honus Wagner 215, Christy Matthewson 205, and Walter  Johnson 189. At least 170 votes were required for induction.

1956: 1956, Atlantic Records signed  the LA doo-wop group the Coasters. The group went on to have a string of top hits, including "Searchin'," "Yakety Yak," and "Charlie Brown," all written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

1959: Buddy Holly performed for the last time. At the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, he played drums for Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, and Dion.

1981: Duran Duran released its first single, "Planet Earth." The group stole its name from the villain in the Jane Fonda movie Barbarella.

1985: Former football star O.J. Simpson married Nicole Brown. In 1995 Simpson was acquitted of the June 1994 murder of Nicole and her friend Ron Goodman.

1993: The U.S. issued patent #5,182,823 to Ron Alsip of Raynham, Massachusetts, for his Toilet Seat Clock, a toilet seat with a clock built into the space normally between one’s legs while sitting on the toilet.

1993: The U.S. issued a patent (#5,182,824) to Nickolas Cipriano of Philadelphia for the Wrestling Bed, a child’s bed with padded corner posts and surrounding ropes to make it resemble a wrestling ring.

1993: First lady Hillary Clinton banned smoking in the White House.

1996: In Coventry, England, when a 4-year-old was awakened by burglars, they told him they were friends of his parents and just came to borrow the TV, VCR, and stereo. The boy was happy to help, held the door open while the burglars carried out the loot, then went back upstairs to bed. The burglars were later caught and the property recovered.

1997: Globo television announced that Brazilians were catching cockroaches by the thousands and selling them to a Rio de Janiero lab involved in allergy research. The lab needed 600-thousand cockroaches and was paying $120 a pound. It takes roughly 54,545 roaches to make a pound.

1998: President Bill Clinton introduced the first U.S. balanced budget in 30 years.

2002: Thirty-year-old Cecilio Emilio Ritz, accused of murder, broke out of Yungay Prison in Santiago, Chile, and went drinking with his buddies at a nearby bar. About three hours later he staggered back to the prison and demanded to be let back in. He walked unsteadily to his cell and fell asleep.

2002: Britney Spears hosted "Saturday Night Live."

2004: The Bush administration said a bipartisan commission would investigate why pre-war intelligence reports that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction apparently had been wrong.