On this date...

Casimir Pulaski - Father Of American Calvary

In 1777, George Washington, on authorization of Congress, appoints Casimir Pulaski as brigadier general in Continental Army cavalry.

In 1776, British General William Howe attacked the vulnerable American trenches before they completed their work. Five British warships sailed into the East River and anchored two hundred yards offshore from Kip's Bay, between modern-day East Thirty-Second and Thirty-Eighth Streets.

In 1829, the Republic of Mexico abolished slavery. The decree did not reach Texas until October, but it was never published because it violated colonization agreements guaranteeing settlers the right to own slaves.

In 1831, The locomotive "John Bull" operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.

In 1858, the new Overland Mail Company sends out its first two stages, inaugurating government mail service between the eastern and western regions of the nation.

In 1862, During the American Civil War, Confederates under General Stonewall Jackson captured Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia), and took more than 12,500 prisoners, the largest Union surrender in the war.

In 1923, Governor Walton of Oklahoma declares state of siege because of Ku Klux Klan terror

In 1931, A small dirigible briefly docks at the mooring mast atop the new Empire State Building before winds drive it away. Despite high hopes for creating a convenient airship port in midtown Manhattan, it never happens again.

In 1944, the U.S. 1st Marine Division lands on the island of Peleliu, one of the Palau Islands in the Pacific, as part of a larger operation to provide support for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who was preparing to invade the Philippines. The cost in American lives would prove historic.

In 1949, The Lone Ranger, originally a radio series, debuted on television, with Clayton Moore as the renegade lawman and Jay Silverheels as Tonto.

In 1950, During the Korean War, U.S. Marines land at Inchon on the west coast of Korea, 100 miles south of the 38th parallel and just 25 miles from Seoul.

In 1959, Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet head of state to visit the United States.

In 1963, Members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed the predominantly African American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four girls.

In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to the United States Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation.

In 1971, a group of activists sets sail from Vancouver aboard a repurposed fishing boat that they have named the Greenpeace. Their mission is to stop the United States from testing a nuclear bomb beneath the Alaskan island of Amchitka. Though they will eventually lose the fight, the environmentalist organization Greenpeace will emerge from this action.

In 1981, US Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O'Connor for the US Supreme Court.

In 1982, The first edition of the USA Today newspaper was published.

In 1996, Texas Rangers retire their 1st number, Nolan Ryan's #34

In 2001, President George W. Bush identified Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and told Americans to prepare for a long, difficult war against terrorism.

In 2005, President George W. Bush, addressing the nation from storm-ravaged New Orleans, acknowledged the government failed to respond adequately to Hurricane Katrina and urged Congress to approve a massive reconstruction program.

In 2008, the venerable Wall Street brokerage firm Lehman Brothers seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest victim of the subprime mortgage crisis that would devastate financial markets and contribute to the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.