On this date...

1824 Election

In 1775, the British Parliament declared the Massachusetts Colony in rebellion

In 1776, Washington wrote three letters to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress. His letters circle a single anxiety: time. Short enlistments, he warns, have already cost America dearly, contributing to the death of Major General Richard Montgomery, and they threaten to undo the army outside Boston just as surely. 

In 1822, the American Indian Society was organized.

In 1825, as no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to elect John Quincy Adams, who had won fewer popular votes than Andrew Jackson, as president of the United States. Adams was the son of John Adams, the second president of the United States.

In 1861, the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America elected Jefferson Davis president and Alexander H. Stephens vice president.

In 1861, the Confederate Provisional Congress declared that all laws under the US Constitution were consistent with constitution of the Confederate States (US Civil War).

In 1861, Tennessee voted against secession (US Civil War).

In 1864, Union General George Armstrong Custer marries Elizabeth Bacon in Monroe, Michigan, while the young cavalry officer is on leave. “Libbie,” as she was known to her family, was a tireless defender of her husband’s reputation after his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana in 1876, and her work helped establish him as an American hero.

In 1870, US President Ulysses S Grant signed a law resulting in the US Army Signal Service’s establishment of its "Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce", later known as the National Weather Service

In 1886, US President Grover Cleveland declared a state of emergency in Seattle because of anti-Chinese violence

In 1888, Walt Whitman penned a note to the publishers of The Riverside Literature Series No. 32 calling attention to mistakes in their recently printed version of his poem, “O Captain! My Captain!” “Somehow you have got a couple of bad perversions in ‘O Captain’,” he wrote. “I send you a corrected sheet.”

In 1889, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was established as a Cabinet-level agency.

In 1895, William Morgan presented his new sport, "Mintonette," to the world at Springfield College, Massachusetts, and later renamed it "Volleyball."

In 1918, the US Army chaplain school was organized at Ft Monroe, Virginia.

In 1926, the teaching theory of evolution was forbidden in Atlanta, Georgia schools.

In 1942, Congress pushed ahead standard time for the United States by one hour in each time zone, imposing daylight saving time, called at the time “wartime.”

In 1943, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order setting a minimum 48-hour work week in several critical war industries.

In 1943, the World War II Battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an Allied victory over Japanese forces.

In 1950, during a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican-Wisconsin) claimed that he had a list with the names of over 200 members of the Department of State that are “known communists.” The speech vaulted McCarthy to national prominence and sparked a nationwide hysteria about subversives in the American government.

In 1953, General Walter Bedell Smith ends term as the 4th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Allen Dulles became Acting Director

In 1960, Adolph Coors disappeared while driving to work from his Morrison, Colorado, home. The grandson of the Coors’ founder and chairman of the Golden, Colorado, brewery was kidnapped and held for ransom before being shot to death. Surrounding evidence launched one of the FBI’s largest manhunts: the search for Joe Corbett.

In 1964, the Beatles made their first live American television appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” broadcast from New York on CBS. The quartet played five songs, including “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” to a crowd of screaming teenagers in person and more than 70 million viewers across the country.

In 1971, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in California’s San Fernando Valley claimed 65 lives.

In 1971, Apollo 14 returned to Earth after man's third landing on the moon.

In 1971, Satchel Paige becomes 1st Negro League player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

In 1987, Former US national security adviser Robert McFarlane attempted suicide by overdosing on Valium hours before scheduled testimony before a panel investigating the illegal arms-for-hostages "Iran-Contra" affair

In 1995, NASA astronaut Bernard Harris became the first Black man to walk in space. His mission contributes to a burgeoning collaboration between the United States and Russia in space exploration.

In 2001, American submarine USS Greeneville accidentally struck and sank the Ehime-Maru, a Japanese training vessel operated by the Uwajima Fishery High School; nine of the Ehime-Maru's crew members were killed, including four high school students.

In 2009, New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs, telling ESPN he’d used banned substances while with the Texas Rangers for three years.

In 2016, the US primary elections: New Hampshire Primary, in the Republican race, Donald Trump won (35%), John Kasich 2nd (16%), and Bernie Sanders (60%) defeated Hillary Clinton (38%) inthe Democratic race.

In 2019, Elizabeth Warren officially announced her 2020 presidential campaign in Lawrence, Massachusetts

In 2021, the Senate moved ahead with a second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, rejecting arguments that the chamber could not proceed because Trump was no longer in office.