On this date...

AI rendered pencil drawing of the Pneumatic Subway in NY

In 1732, the First Mass was celebrated in the first American Catholic church, St. Joseph's, Philadelphia

In 1776, Washington fixed his attention on Dorchester Heights, the key to Boston. He issues orders to consolidate entrenching tools—axes, shovels, pick-axes—and writes John Hancock, explaining that the army is quietly preparing to seize the Heights. The move is meant to force the British to fight or abandon the city.

In 1870, New York City's first pneumatic-powered subway line was opened to the public. (The tunnel was only a block long.)

In 1871, two brothers—ages 8 and 10—were kidnapped by a group of Comanches and Lipans. After two failed rescue attempts, Jefferson and Clinton Smith were eventually reunited with their families five years later.

In 1895, Michael Owens of Toledo, Ohio, patented a glass-blowing machine to make glass bottles.

In 1914, the New York Museum of Science & Industry was incorporated.

In 1919, Grand Canyon National Park was established.

In 1919, Acadia National Park came into existence when Congress approved An Act to Establish the Lafayette National Park at Mt. Desert Island off the coast of Maine.

In 1929, Grand Teton National Park was established in Wyoming; in 1950 it was expanded to include most of Jackson Hole National Monument.

In 1935, the New York Yankees released Babe Ruth; he signed with the Boston Braves

In 1938, the National Dollar Stores Strike began in San Francisco's Chinatown. The three-month strike delivered a win for workers and became the neighborhood's first major organized labor dispute.

In 1941, the Cowboys' Amateur Association of America was organized in California.

In 1945, an ammunition dump on the Philippine island of Corregidor was blown up by a remnant of the Japanese garrison, causing more American casualties on the eve of U.S. victory there.

In 1951, American novelist James Jones published From Here to Eternity, about the U.S. Army in Hawaii before the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor; it was later adapted into an Academy Award–winning movie.

In 1953, Allen Dulles was officially promoted from deputy director to become the 5th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In 1954, Michigan Representative Ruth Thompson (R) introduced legislation to ban mailing "obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy" phonograph (rock & roll) records

In 1970, National Public Radio was incorporated.

In 1973, Triple Crown horse Secretariat was bought for a record $5.7m

In 1974, Nike received a U.S. patent for its waffle trainer running shoes. Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman invented the now-iconic soles in a waffle iron over breakfast.

In 1984, the last U.S. Marines sent to Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force left Beirut, the war-torn Lebanese capital, where some 250 of the original 800 Marines lost their lives during the problem-plagued 18-month mission.

In 1984, Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Penn Warren was named the 1st US poet laureate.

In 1984, Rev. Jesse Jackson acknowledged that he called NYC "Hymietown."

In 1987, the Tower Commission issued its report on the Iran-Contra affair, rebuking President Ronald Reagan for failing to control his national security staff.

In 1993, the World Trade Center bombing killed six and injured more than 1,000.

In 1998, Oprah Winfrey was found not guilty in a beef defamation trial brought by Texas cattlemen

In 2012, Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager, was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida, by a neighborhood-watch volunteer who claimed that he had acted in self-defense. His acquittal in July 2013 was widely perceived as a miscarriage of justice and led to nationwide protests that led to the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement.