On this date in history…

(2004) NASA‘s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit landed on Mars to study the chemical and physical composition of the planet’s surface. (2001) Hillary Clinton was sworn in as a U.S. senator from New York, having become the first first lady in U.S. history to win elective office. (1990) After undergoing 10 days of psychological warfare—which included U.S. forces blasting rock music at the Vatican embassy, where he had sought refuge—Panamanian military leader Manuel Noriega surrendered to the United States. (1977) Apple was incorporated by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and it later became one of the most valuable companies in the world, known for innovative computer and electronic products. (1962) Pope John XXIII excommunicated Fidel Castro, who had transformed Cuba into a communist state; at the time, the Roman Catholic Church opposed communism. Alaska became the 49th U.S. state. (1938) U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis (later called the March of Dimes) to find a cure for polio, a disease he had been stricken with in 1921. (1892) English author and scholar J.R.R. Tolkien, who was perhaps best known for his richly inventive epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), was born in South Africa. (1793) American reformer Lucretia Mott—who, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, founded the women’s rights movement in the United States—was born. (1777) The Battle of Princeton (New Jersey) was fought during the American Revolution; the clash, along with the Battle of Trenton, marked the first victory for the Revolutionary War general George Washington in the open field.  (1521) Pope Leo X issued the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem, excommunicating Martin Luther, the German priest whose questioning of certain Roman Catholic practices initiated the Protestant Reformation.