English inventor Andrew Smith Hallidie, in the U.S. since 1852, revolutionized transportation methods in San Francisco when he successfully tested a cable car he had designed to solve the problem of providing mass transit up San Francisco's steep hills. He not only invented, but also manufactured, and patented the first cable car and its system of wire ropes, pulleys, tracks, and grips that made it possible. Hallidie, an engineer and one-time miner, realized the need on one foggy day in 1869 when he watched in horror as horses pulling a carriage up one of the City's steep grades slipped on the wet cobblestoned street, the heavy carriage rolled backward downhill and the five horses dragged behind it suffered fatal injuries. Hallidie, using wire rope, had already had much success in the use of cable drawn ore cars for use in mines.

Effective on this day, all US cigarette packages began carrying the health warning: Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health. This resulted from landmark federal legislation enacted in 1965 that required health warnings on cigarette packages. In 1984, the law was amended to require one of four warning labels in most cigarette-related advertising (U.S. Code, Title 15, Chapter 36, Sec. 1333.)