1861...As Civil War looms, Mayor Fernando Wood proposes that New York secede from the Union and become a city-state to preserve its profitable trade with the South.

1955...Marian Anderson, the first African-American member of the Metropolitan Opera, makes her Met debut.

1996...The Blizzard of '96 rolls into the Big Apple. Schools are closed and most businesses and streets are shut down, costing tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue. The final official measurement: 20.2 inches over about a day and a half. At the time it's the city's third largest snowfall, coming in behind only the blizzards of 1947 and 1888.