On July 10, the area entered the history books when the mercury climbed to a blistering 134 degrees Fahrenheit (57 degrees Celsius) at Furnace Creek, California, breaking the record for the highest temperature ever recorded.
Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of a major American city: Black History Month. View full sizePlain Dealer file photoCarl Stokes, shown in 1968 in downtown Cleveland, focused many of his efforts as mayor on improving city services and helping Cleveland's poorest residents.
In 1789, Justice James Wilson was sworn in by the mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the court first sat. Thurgood Marshall, the nation's first African-American justice, took the Constitutional Oath in 1967 from Associate Justice Hugo Black, an Alabaman.