On this date in...

1859...The fashionable Fifth Avenue Hotel opens on Madison Square at 23rd Street. It boasts gaslights and the latest high-tech wonder: an elevator.

1944...It's the first and only triple dead-heat in American horse racing history, as "Brownie," "Boussuet" and "Wait-A-Bit" hit the finish line together at Aqueduct.

1978..."Affirmed" – steered by Steve Cauthen – wins the Triple Crown in a head-to-head duel with "Alydar" at Belmont. No horse has won the Triple Crown since.

1991...More than four million pack the Canyon of Heroes to pay homage to America's soldiers and sailors in the Gulf War against Iraq. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, a native New Yorker, is one of the parade's Grand Marshals.

Today's New Yorker birthdays include longtime Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff, born in 1925.