On this date in . . .

1825: The U. S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president after no candidate won a majority of electoral votes.

1869: The horsecycle was patented. It was a bicycle that looked like a horse; and supposedly it wouldn't scare horses that you met along the road.

1942: Daylight-saving ''war time'' went into effect in the United States, with clocks turned one hour forward.

1942: The Philadelphia Phillies changed their name to the Phils. Fans continued to call them the Phillies..

1953: "The Adventures of Superman" debuted in television syndication. In the original episode, with destruction of the planet Krypton eminent, Jor-El and his wife Lara sent their infant son Kal-El to Earth in a small rocket, where he was discovered and reared by Eben and Sarah Kent. They named their adopted son Clark.

1964: The G.I. Joe doll debuted.

1964: In their first live American TV appearance, the Beatles drew 73.7-million viewers to The Ed Sullivan Show. They were paid $2,400 to sing "All My Loving," "Till There Was You," "She Loves You," "I Saw Her Standing There," and "I Want To Hold Your Hand."

1971: Pitcher Satchel Paige became the first Negro League player elected the baseball Hall of Fame.

1981: Rock legend Bill Haley died at age 55 of a heart attack at his home in Harlingen, Texas. He had 21 singles on the Billboard pop charts in the mid-50s, including "Rock Around the Clock," "Burn That Candle," and "See You Later, Alligator."

1987: Twenty years after the first woman was admitted to the New York Stock Exchange, the Exchange Luncheon Club decided to install a ladies rest room. For 20 years the ladies had to walk downstairs to find a ladies room.

1989: Witnesses at a New Jersey hearing on the deregulation of professional wrestling testified that the sport was a fake.

1997: "The Simpsons" became the longest-running prime-time animated TV series, besting the six-season record previously held by "The Flintstones."

1997: Best Products closed the last of its stores, as the catalog-showroom concept of retailing diminished.

2003: President Bush declared to congressional Republicans that Iraq had fooled the world for more than a decade about its banned weapons of mass destruction and the UN was now facing "a moment of truth" in disarming Saddam Hussein.

2003: A one-armed lifeguard was named as one of the best in his job in Chile. Forty-eight-year-old Francisco Aguilera Morales, the official lifeguard of San Carlos Beach, lost his right arm above the elbow in a childhood accident. But it hadn't stopped him working as a lifeguard for 14 years. Morales said, "I grab their neck with what's left of my right arm and swim back using the left arm." He was honored for saving 22 people in 2002.

2006: President Bush said international cooperation had derailed a terrorist plot to fly an airplane into the 73-story Library Tower in Los Angeles.