On this date...

John Hays

In 1755, Worst quake in Massachusetts Bay area strikes Boston; no deaths reported.

In 1775, Washington instructs the commissary general to collect all bullock horns from cattle slaughtered for army provisions. The horns are to be crafted into powder horns—essential tools for soldiers who must carry dry gunpowder.

In 1861, The first provisional meeting of the Confederate Congress is held in Richmond, Virginia

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln boards a train for Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to deliver a short speech the following day at the dedication of a cemetery of soldiers killed during the battle there on July 1 to July 3, 1863. The address Lincoln gave in Gettysburg became one of the most famous speeches in American history.

In 1865, Mark Twain publishes the short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" in The New York Saturday Press

In 1883, the American and Canadian railroad companies divided North America into four time zones in order to standardize schedules. Until then, each community kept its own "time" based on the locally perceived motion of the sun. Given the importance of the railroad, communities moved quickly to adopt the standard. Congress did not officially adopt the railroad time zones until 1918.

In 1903, Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, representing Panama, met with U.S. Secretary of State John Hay to negotiate the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which gave the United States a strip 10 miles (16 km) wide across the Isthmus of Panama for construction of the Panama Canal.

In 1917, Sigma Alpha Rho, a Jewish high school fraternity, is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1928, Disney's "Steamboat Willie," first cartoon with synchronized sound, premieres.

In 1949, Three years after breaking major league baseball's color barrier, Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson becomes the league's first Black MVP. That season, he batted .342 and stole 37 bases, personal records that lasted his entire career.

In 1959, The American dramatic film Ben-Hur, arguably the best of Hollywood's biblical epics, had its world premiere; it later won an unprecedented 11 Academy Awards.

In 1961, JFK sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam

In 1963, The first push-button (Touch-Tone) telephones debuted in the United States, eventually replacing most rotary-dial models.

In 1966, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops did away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays.

In 1970, American scientist Linus Pauling popularizes the idea that taking large doses of vitamin C can prevent or treat the common cold; the claim is largely unproven

In 1987, After nearly a year of hearings into the Iran-Contra scandal, the joint Congressional investigating committee issues its final report. It concluded that the scandal, involving a complicated plan whereby some of the funds from secret weapons sales to Iran were used to finance the Contra war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, was one in which the administration of Ronald Reagan exhibited “secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law.”

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation creating a Cabinet-level drug czar and providing the death penalty for drug traffickers who kill.

In 1989, Pennsylvania is first to restrict abortions after US Supreme Court gave states the right to do so

In 1999, Thousands of logs stacked 59 feet high for a massive pre-football game bonfire collapse at Texas A&M University, killing 12 and injuring nearly 30 in an avalanche of timber.

In 2003, Massachusetts court ruling makes the state the first to recognize same-sex marriage.

In 2005, eight months after Robert Blake was acquitted of murdering his wife at a criminal trial, a civil jury decided the actor was behind the slaying and ordered him to pay Bonny Lee Bakley’s children $30 million.

In 2009, American Democratic politician Robert C. Byrd became the longest-serving member of Congress, with a combined service in the House of Representatives and Senate of 56 years 319 days; he died the following year.