On this date...

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

In 1634, the first group of settlers landed in what is now southern Maryland, an event commemorated each year on Maryland Day.

In 1776, the Battle of Saint-Pierre, Canada, took place. A battered American force under the command of Colonel Benedict Arnold that had recently been defeated at the Battle of Quebec, attacked the British headquarters at Blais house and took the location.

In 1776, at Tybee Island, Georgia, a raiding party of 30 Creek Indians and Georgia militia, dressed as native warriors, attacked 12 British Marines on Tybee Island. Captain Archibald Bullock commanded the militia. The British had been sent to Tybee Island with 12 slaves to cut wood and collect water. They were not armed.

In 1776, Washington leans on Nathanael Greene to impose order in Boston: wagon masters and carpenters must obey Greene’s directions. Yet Washington’s confidence is brittle. He warns Joseph Reed that a large body of militia is about to see their enlistments expire. From experience, Washington knows that once soldiers’ terms are up, they leave “like a torrent.”

In 1776, Timothy Pickering Jr. writes from Massachusetts, pressing Washington to return Salem’s four twelve-pounders—cannon once loaned freely, now urgently wanted for coastal defense.

In 1843, 17 Texans were executed by Mexican soldiers after an escape attempt while being marched to Mexico City. There were 176 Texans in all who had been captured, and President Antonio López de Santa Anna ordered 10 percent of them to be executed, chosen by lottery. The soldiers' bodies were returned to Texas and are buried in La Grange. It is known as the Black Bean Episode.

In 1851, the discovery of Yosemite Valley was made public by Major James D. Savage and Captain John Boling after being shown by Indian guides in California.

In 1863, the 1st US Army Medal of Honor was awarded to six Army soldiers by US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in Washington.

In 1894, Jacob S. Coxey began a march from Massillon (MA’-sih-luhn), Ohio, leading an “army” of as many as 500 unemployed workers to Washington to demand help from the federal government.

In 1898, writer O. Henry was sentenced to 5 years in prison for embezzling $854 from a bank, reportedly to pay for his sick wife's medical bills. Goes on to write many classics while in jail, including "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking".

In 1905, Confederate battle flags captured during the American Civil War were returned to the South.

In 1911, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the heart of New York City, a lethal fire broke out on the factory floor, located at the top of the ten-story Asch Building near Washington Square East. Trapping many of the textile workers inside, the fire claimed the lives of one in four employees.

In 1919, Woodrow Wilson's dream of a League of Nations became a reality after the League Covenant was adopted at the Paris Peace Conference.

In 1931, in the so-called Scottsboro Boys case, nine young Black men were taken off a train in Alabama and accused of raping two white women; after years of convictions, death sentences, and imprisonment, they were eventually vindicated.

In 1936, a 200-inch mirror blank to build the Hale telescope left Corning, New York, for California (then the largest telescopic mirror ever made)

In 1947, a coal dust explosion inside the Centralia Coal Co. Mine No. 5 in Washington County, Illinois, killed 111 miners; 31 survived.

In 1957, the U.S. Customs Department confiscated 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s book Howl, which had been printed in England. Officials alleged that the book was obscene.

In 1961, Elvis Presley performed live at Pearl Harbor’s Bloch Arena in a benefit for the USS Arizona Memorial; his return to the concert stage after a stint in the US Army raised $60K and worldwide awareness of the project.

In 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights activists completed their march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama; local police had halted two previous marches.

In 1969, American singer Judy Garland gave what became her very last concert, at Falkoner Centret in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In 1987, responding to a 911 call, police raided the Philadelphia home of Gary Heidnik and found an appalling crime scene. In the basement of Heidnik’s dilapidated house is a veritable torture chamber where three naked women were found chained to a sewer pipe. A fourth woman, Josefina Rivera, had escaped and called the police.

In 1988, Robert E. Chambers Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin in New York City's so-called "preppie murder case."

In 1990, 87 people were killed when fire raced through the Happy Land social club in New York City. (The fire was set by Julio Gonzalez, who had been thrown out of the club following an argument with his girlfriend; Gonzalez died in prison in 2016.)

In 1993, Wendy's founder Dave Thomas, worried that his status as a high-school dropout-turned-burger mogul sent the wrong message to kids, earned his GED diploma at age 60. Local high school seniors vote him "most likely to succeed."

In 1994, American troops completed their withdrawal from Somalia.

In 1996, an 81-day standoff by the Montana Freemen, an antigovernment militia, began at a ranch near Jordan, Montana.

In 1996, the redesigned $100 bill went into circulation.

In 2019, the first organ transplant between a live HIV donor and an HIV recipient was a kidney transplant in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 2021, the Republican-led Georgia State Senate passed restrictive changes to state voting. President Joe Biden calls it "Jim Crow in the 21st Century" and "a blatant attack on the Constitution".