On this date...

Charlotte May Pierstorff - Mailed as a child

In 1776, Washington weighed the war in pounds. In a letter to Jonathan Trumbull Sr., the governor of Connecticut, Washington writes that he expected to receive almost 8,000 pounds of gunpowder from Providence, but instead finds only 4,217 pounds. 

In 1777, the Continental Congress voted to promote Thomas Mifflin, Arthur St. Clair, William Alexander, Lord Stirling, Adam Stephen, and Benjamin Lincoln to the rank of major general. Although the promotions were intended in part to balance the number of generals from each state, Brigadier General Benedict Arnold felt slighted that five junior officers received promotions ahead of him and, in response, threatened to resign from the Patriot army.

In 1803, the US Congress accepted Ohio's bid for statehood, but neglected to ratify its constitution; oversight was not corrected until1953 [1]

In 1807, Aaron Burr, a former U.S. vice president, was arrested in Alabama on charges of plotting to annex Spanish territory in Louisiana and Mexico to be used toward the establishment of an independent republic.

In 1831, the 1st practical US coal-burning locomotive makes 1st trial run in Pennsylvania.

In 1846, the Republic of Texas became the State of Texas. During a ceremony in Austin, the republic's last president, Anson Jones, turned over control to the newly organized state government and James P. Henderson, Texas's first governor, as part of the United States.

In 1847, the first of four rescue parties arrived to save members of the Donner-Reed party from where they were stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

In 1852, the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity was founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.

In 1856, the tin-type camera was patented by Hamilton Smith, Gambier, Ohio.

In 1878, Thomas Edison was awarded a patent for the phonograph.

In 1881, Kansas became the first U.S. state to include the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in its state constitution.

In 1884, the "Enigma Outbreak" of over 60 tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana killed hundreds, if not over a thousand (hence the "enigma") people.

In 1906, Will Keith Kellogg joined Charles D. Bolin in founding the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, now the multinational food manufacturer Kellogg's, after falling out with his brother over credit for the development and over adding sugar to cereal.

In 1910, Typhoid Mary [Mary Mallon] was freed from her first period of forced isolation and went on to cause several further outbreaks of typhoid in the New York area.

In 1914, four-year-old Charlotte May Pierstorff was mailed by train from Grangeville, Idaho, to her grandparents’ house 73 miles away in the most famous 'child in the post' instance.

In 1942, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which forced Japanese Americans into detention camps during World War II. The policy, a culmination of the federal government's history of racism and discrimination against Asian immigrants and their descendants, was formally repealed in 1976.

In 1945, the Battle of Iwo Jima began.

In 1950, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Mississippi Vocational College (later Mississippi Valley State University).

In 1952, American defending champion Dick Button becomes 1st figure-skater to land a triple jump in competition; performs triple loop in Olympic free skate in Oslo; wins gold medal ahead of Austria’s Helmut Seibt.

In 1963, Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" was published.

In 1963, the USSR informed JFK that it was withdrawing several thousand troops from Cuba.

In 1968, the first statewide teachers' strike in the US began in Florida [note: a two-day walkout in Utah in 1963 is considered first by some].

In 1987, US President Reagan lifted the trade boycott against Poland.

In 2004, Former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Skilling was charged with fraud, insider trading, and other crimes in connection with the energy trader's collapse.

In 2007, New Jersey became the third state to offer civil unions to gay couples.

In 2010, the FBI concluded that Army scientist Bruce Ivins acted alone in the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people, and formally closed the case.