Today in history—December 12

1745: The first Chief Justice of the United States, John Jay, is born in New York City.

1791: The first Bank of the United States opens for business.

1800: Washington, D.C., becomes the capital of the United States.

1805: Henry Wells, is born in Thetford, Vermont. Together with his partner William Fargo he will go on to found the American Express Co., and later the pair will start Wells, Fargo & Co.

1847: James Kent (left), Chancellor of New York and author of the famous Commentaries on American Law, dies in New York City.

1858: The first Canadian coins are introduced into circulation.

1870: Joseph Hayne Rainey of South Carolina, former slave, is sworn in as the first African-American member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

1901: Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio message—the three dots of the letter”S”—at a station in Newfoundland. The Anglo-American Telegraph Company, which holds the telegraph monopoly in Newfoundland, immediately threatens to sue him if he does not cease operations.

1906: President Roosevelt appoints Oscar Straus to be U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Labor; he is the first Jew to serve as a U.S. cabinet official.

1925: The world’s first “motel” opens, the Motel Inn in San Luis Obispo, California (left).  The term is coined by owner Arthur Heinman. For $1.25 a night, guests driving between Los Angeles and San Francisco can get a two-room bungalow, complete with kitchen and garage; it even has a swimming pool.

1937: The first mobile television vans hit the streets in New York, operated by RCA and NBC.

1945: Can moral obligation be consideration for a contract?  In Harrington v. Taylor—known to many law students as The Case of the Axe-Wielding Wife—the North Carolina Supreme Court says no.

1946: Proctor & Gamble introduces Tide detergent. The same day, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., donates six blocks of Manhattan real estate to the new United Nations.

1971: David Sarnoff, a penniless immigrant from Russia who worked his way up from office boy to found RCA, dies.

1979: Gold hits a record price of $462.50 an ounce, or about $1,200 in 2003 dollars.

1991: Film studio Orion Pictures files for bankruptcy.