History of the day...

Opha May Johnson - 1st Female Marine

In 1776, Washington prepares for the attack he believes is now close at hand. He tells the army that the enemy’s reinforcements have arrived and frames the coming fight as a test of “Liberty, Property, Life and Honor.” Soldiers must stand firm: Anyone who skulks or retreats without orders may be shot, while those who distinguish themselves will be rewarded. Washington also sends away the official papers in his possession, packed in a nailed box for delivery to Congress. Since yesterday, 36 more enemy ships have arrived.

In 1777, an American explosive device made by David Bushnell exploded near a British vessel off New London, CT.

In 1779, the Royal Navy defeated the United States in the Penobscot Expedition, resulting in the most significant loss of United States naval forces before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In 1831, Nat Turner sees a solar eclipse, which he believes is a sign from God. Eight days later, he and 70 other slaves kill approximately 55 whites in Southampton County, Virginia, beginning the rebellion that bears his name.

In 1836, a U.S. government employee wrote the first of ten letters about the newly independent Republic of Texas. Henry Mason Morfit urged President Andrew Jackson not to recognize the new nation. Among other things, Morfit did not believe Texas could hold off reconquest by Mexico. Official recognition of Texas by the United States would not begin until March 1837.

In 1846, the American flag was raised for the first time in Los Angeles as a joint expedition led by CDR Robert Stockton seized the city.

In 1878, Kate Bionda, a restaurant owner, died of yellow fever in Memphis, Tennessee, after a man who had escaped a quarantined steamboat visited her restaurant. The disease spread rapidly, and the resulting epidemic emptied the city.

In 1862, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeated a Union army under Thomas Crittenden at Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

In 1863, a naval force under Lieutenant Bache reconnoitered the White River above Clarendon, Arkansas, to gain information on the whereabouts of [Confederate General Sterling] Price’s Army, to destroy the telegraph at Des Arc and capture the operator, and to catch the steamboats Kaskaskia and Thos. Sugg.”

In 1864, sensing a weakness in the Confederate defenses around Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, Union General Ulysses S. Grant seeks to break the siege of Petersburg by concentrating his force against one section of the Rebel trenches.

In 1889, William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut, received a patent for the first coin-operated telephone.

In 1892, US black newspaper “Afro-American” began publishing from Baltimore.

In 1898, the U.S. Army took control of the Philippine port of Manila during the Spanish-American War.

In 1906, at Fort Brown, Texas, some 10-20 armed men engaged an all-Black Army unit in a shooting rampage that left one townsperson dead and a police officer wounded.

In 1908, the career of future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Cy Young is celebrated with a special day in his name in Boston, as he pitches briefly for the Red Sox against an All-Star team.

In 1914, Carl Wickman began Greyhound, the first US bus line, in Minnesota.

In 1918, Opha May Johnson became the first woman to join the U.S. Marine Corps.

In 1920, the flag designed by Marcus Garvey, consisting of three horizontal stripes of red, black, and green, was adopted as the Pan-African flag.

In 1934, the comic strip “Li'l Abner” by Al Capp debuted.

In 1941, Henry Ford showed off his so-called Soybean Car, whose plastic body was partially made from protein-rich soybeans. While it weighs half as much as a steel-bodied car and Ford says it’s safer, it never goes into production.

In 1942, Walt Disney’s animated feature “Bambi” premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

In 1942, Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorized the construction of facilities that would house the “Development of Substitute Materials” project, better known as the Manhattan Project.

In 1942, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin drafted a memorandum to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt opposing their decision not to invade Western Europe at that time.

In 1944, Allied generals Bernard Montgomery, Miles Dempsey, and Omar Bradley discuss a future breakthrough in the European theatre during World War II.

In 1945, Japanese surrender documents, approved by President Truman, are sent to General MacArthur.

In 1945, about 1,600 American aircraft fly over Tokyo and other Japanese cities, dropping millions of leaflets explaining the position reached in the surrender negotiations and the state of affairs in Japan.

In 1950, Pres. Truman provided military aid to the Vietnamese regime of Bao Dai.

In 1952, Big Mama Thornton first recorded the song “Hound Dog,” four years before Elvis Presley’s famous version was released.

In 1953, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the President’s Committee on Government Contracts.

In 1960, the first two-way telephone conversation by satellite took place using Echo 1, a balloon satellite.

In 1962, two Americans, David Healy and Leonard Oeth, skyjacked a charter plane heading to Miami, Florida, and forced its pilot to fly to Cuba.

In 1967, the crime drama Bonnie and Clyde, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the outlaw couple, opened in New York City, pioneering a new era of filmmaking by tearing down barriers in the depiction of violence and sexuality.

In 1969, New York City held a ticker-tape parade for Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins.

In 1981, at his California home Rancho del Cielo, Ronald Reagan signs the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA), a package of tax and budget reductions that set the tone for his administration’s trickle-down economic policy.

In 1981, American swimmer Mary T. Meagher breaks her own world women’s 200 m butterfly record with a time of 2:05.96 in Brown Deer, Wisconsin.

In 1987, A rented Piper Cherokee airplane flew close to President Reagan’s helicopter in restricted airspace over Southern California; the pilot and passenger of the plane were arrested.

In 1989, the space shuttle Columbia returned from a secret military mission.

In 1990, American soul singer Curtis Mayfield became paralyzed from the neck down after stage lighting equipment fell on him at an outdoor concert at Wingate Field in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York. However, unable to perform live, he continues to compose, sing, and record.

In 1990, President Bush ordered Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to the Persian Gulf for the second time since Iraq invaded Kuwait. American combat troops in Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, were told to prepare for a long stay.

In 2008, American Michael Phelps swam into history as the winningest Olympic athlete ever with his 10th and 11th career gold medals.

In 2011, seven people were killed when a stage collapsed at the Indiana State Fair during a powerful storm just before a concert was to begin. 

In 2011, in Republican presidential politics, Rep. Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry declared his candidacy.

In 2020, during an interview on the Fox Business Network, President Donald Trump acknowledged that he was starving the U.S. Postal Service of funding to make it harder to process an expected surge in mail-in ballots.