1904: Charles Richard Drew, African American physician who organized the blood bank system in the United States during WWII, was born in Washington, DC. He was killed in an automobile accident in 1950.

1880: Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first wireless telephone message on his newly invented photophone from the top of the Franklin School in Washington, D.C. Bell believed that the photophone was his most important invention. The device allowed the transmission of sound on a beam of light. Of the eighteen patents granted in Bell's name alone, and the twelve that he shared with his collaborators, four were for the photophone. The photophone functioned similarly to the telephone, except that the photophone used light as a means of projecting the information and the telephone relied on electricity. (Source: Library of Congress)