On this date...

First Lady "Lemonade" Lucy Hayes

In 1630, Indians introduced pilgrims to popcorn at Thanksgiving.

In 1732, President George Washington was born.

In 1776, on his 44th birthday, from headquarters at Cambridge, Washington studies returns, orders discipline, and waits on news from distant fronts.  Additionally.

Brigadier General William Heath writes to explain that several chaplains have been appointed only on a temporary basis. Uncertainty about how long they can remain with the army makes it difficult to assign them across multiple regiments.

In 1777, Revolutionary War leader and Georgia’s first Provisional Governor Archibald Bulloch died under mysterious circumstances just hours after Georgia’s Council of Safety granted him the powers of a dictator in expectation of a British invasion.

In 1784, a U.S. merchant ship, the Empress of China, left New York harbor for the first trade voyage of an American ship to China.

In 1786, in London, John Adams met with the ambassador of Tripoli in order to negotiate a settlement to end piracy on American shipping in the Mediterranean Sea and off the coasts of Portugal and Spain. The negotiations fail.

In 1819, Spanish minister Don Luis de Onis and U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams signed the Florida Purchase Treaty, in which Spain agreed to cede the remainder of its province of Florida to the United States.

In 1847, U.S. General Zachary Taylor led troops against a Mexican force commanded by General Antonio López de Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista during the Mexican-American War. Taylor's victories in the war made him a popular figure and helped him win the U.S. presidency in 1848.

In 1851, an angry mob in San Francisco’s business district tried two Australian suspects in the robbery and assault of C. J. Jansen. When the makeshift jury deadlocked, the suspects were returned to law enforcement officials. It was one of the most prominent vigilante moments of the California Gold Rush era.

In 1862, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president of the Confederacy.

In 1864, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest routed a Union force three times the size of his army in a battle that helped end Union General William T. Sherman’s expedition into Alabama.

In 1865, Tennessee adopted a new constitution abolishing slavery.

In 1879, Frank Winfield Woolworth opened a five-cent store in Utica, N.Y.

In 1881, President Hayes, whose wife is nicknamed Lemonade Lucy because she serves no alcohol in the White House, declared that no alcoholic beverages were to be sold on military posts.

In 1889, US President Cleveland signs bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana & Washington state to the union

In 1909, the Great White Fleet, the first US fleet to circle the globe, returned to Virginia

In 1918, Swept along by hysterical fears of treacherous German spies and domestic labor violence, the Montana legislature passed a Sedition Law that severely restricted freedom of speech and assembly.

In 1924, Calvin Coolidge delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House.

In 1932, the Purple Heart, a U.S. military decoration originally instituted by George Washington in 1782 to honor bravery in battle, was revived as an award for those wounded or killed in action.

In 1933, Malcolm Campbell set a world land speed record of 272.46 mph, driving his famous Blue Bird car at Daytona Beach, Florida

In 1935, it became illegal for airplanes to fly over the White House.

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered Gen. Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines, as the American defense of the islands collapsed.

In 1946, George Kennan, the American charge d’affaires in Moscow, sent an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union and U.S. policy toward the communist state. Kennan’s analysis provided one of the most influential underpinnings for America’s Cold War policy of containment and became a foundational document of 20th-century U.S. history.

In 1959, NASCAR held the first Daytona 500, which was won by Lee Petty. NASCAR grew unprecedentedly in popularity in the 21st century, and the Daytona 500 became one of the best-attended sporting events in the United States.

In 1967, more than 35,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops launched Operation Junction City, aimed at smashing a Vietcong stronghold near the Cambodian border.

In 1969, 19-year-old Barbara Jo Rubin became the first female jockey to win a race at an American thoroughbred track when she rode Cohesion to a victory by a neck over Reely Beeg in the ninth race at Charles Town, West Virginia.

In 1978, the U.S. Air Force launched Navstar 1, the world’s first operational GPS satellite, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. GPS began as a military technology, but has expanded to transform industries from aviation to communications.

In 1980, "Miracle on Ice" was the US defeating the Soviet Union in hockey at the Winter Olympics.

In 1983, Harold Washington won Chicago's Democratic mayoral primary

In 1989, the first Grammy Award for rap went to....D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (Jeff Townes and Will Smith) for "Parents Just Don't Understand."

In 1991, President Bush and America’s Gulf War allies gave Iraq 24 hours to begin withdrawing from Kuwait, or face a final all-out attack. Iraq denounced the “shameful” US ultimatum, aligning itself with a Soviet peace plan the US had rejected.

In 2010, Najibullah Zazi, accused of buying products from beauty supply stores to make bombs for an attack on New York City subways, pleaded guilty to charges including conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction. (Zazi faced up to life in prison but spent nearly a decade after his arrest helping the U.S. identify and prosecute terrorists; he was given a 10-year sentence followed by supervised release.)

In 2011, Somali pirates shot to death four Americans taken hostage on their yacht several hundred miles south of Oman.

In 2017, US President Donald Trump overturned Obama's directive on Transgender rights to use toilets

In 2021, the number of U.S. deaths from COVID-19 topped 500,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In 2022, US President Joe Biden announced new sanctions against Russia, saying its latest moves in Ukraine amount to "the beginning of a Russian invasion."