On this date...

US Navy and Army Game

In 1760, Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers took possession of Detroit on behalf of Britain. French commandant Belotre surrendered Detroit. General James Amherst selected Rogers for the honor of receiving the surrender of the western French posts——Detroit, Michilimackinac, Ouiatenon, and others.

In 1775, Captain John Manley of Marblehead, commanding the schooner Lee captured the British brigantine Nancy, about ten miles off Cape Ann.

In 1775, Congress initially established the Committee of Correspondence to communicate with colonial agents in Britain and “friends in ... other parts of the world.”

In 1775, From Cambridge, Washington writes to the Massachusetts General Court, warning that furloughs granted to encourage reenlistment have reduced his ranks by 1,500 men. He also chastises them for paying troops by the lunar month—28 days—rather than the calendar month established by Congress.

In 1776, The siege of Fort Cumberland, Nova Scotia, ends when British reinforcements arrive.

In 1777, San Jose, California, is founded as Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. It is the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, in Alta California.

In 1804, Lt Presley O’Bannon and seven Marines landed in Alexandria, Egypt. The group will gather 500 mercenaries and in January 1805 begin an overland march to Tripoli.

In 1808, Secretary of Treasury Gallatin requested 12 new cutters at a cost of $120,000 to enforce “laws which prohibit exportation and restrain importations” to support the embargo ordered by President Thomas Jefferson.

In 1847, Cayuse Native Americans kill missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and 12 others at Waiilatpu Mission in Oregon Country due to suspicion that they poisoned 200 Cayuse people.

In 1864, Colonel John M. Chivington led a surprise attack, known as the Sand Creek Massacre, on a camp of Cheyenne and Arapaho people in southeastern Colorado Territory. U.S. troops murdered more than 230 Native people, who were at the site under a white flag of truce.

In 1890, Navy won the first Army-Navy football game 24-0 at West Point, N.Y.

In 1915, Fire destroys most of the buildings on Santa Catalina Island, California.

In 1923, International commission headed by American banker Charles Dawes was set up to investigate the German economy.

In 1927, In California troops battled 1,200 inmates after Folsom prisoners revolted.

In 1929, American pioneer aviator Richard E. Byrd flew over the South Pole.

In 1942, coffee joins the list of items rationed in the United States. Despite record coffee production in Latin American countries, the growing demand for the bean from both military and civilian sources, and the demands placed on shipping, which was needed for other purposes, required the limiting of its availability.

In 1952, Making good on his most dramatic presidential campaign promise, newly elected Dwight D. Eisenhower goes to Korea to see whether he can find the key to ending the bitter and frustrating Korean War.

In 1961, Enos the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.

In 1963, Warren Commission is established to investigate President Kennedy's assassination.

In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson announces that Robert S. McNamara will resign as Secretary of Defense and will become president of the World Bank.

In 1972, Pong—the groundbreaking electronic video game—was released by the American game manufacturer Atari Inc., essentially launching what is now the $200+ billion home video game industry.

In 1975, President Gerald Ford signs the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142). The landmark measure requires that all children with physical, mental, emotional and learning disabilities have access to “free, appropriate public education” tailored to their needs.

In 1997, In a ceremony that was broadcast around the world by satellite, some 28,000 couples gathered at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., for a “wedding” conducted by Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church.

In 2018, in a surprise guilty plea, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen confessed that he lied to Congress about a Moscow real estate deal he pursued on Trump’s behalf during the 2016 campaign.

In 2022, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy for a violent plot to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential win, handing the Justice Department a major victory in its massive prosecution of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. (Rhodes would be sentenced to 18 years in prison in May 2023).