On this date...

Cigarette Tax

In 1776, Washington paused briefly in New Haven while traveling to New York. He writes to Samuel McKay, a British prisoner, responding to McKay’s plea for relief. Washington explains that he has repeatedly asked General William Howe for a prisoner exchange but has received no answer. If McKay remains confined, Washington says, the responsibility lies with Howe.

In 1776, Major General Artemas Ward writes from Boston with intelligence: Captured sailors claim British forces intend to move toward Quebec once the St. Lawrence River opens.

In 1781, at Wiggin’s Hill, Barnwell County, South Carolina, Col. Thomas Brown, with a combined British and Cherokee force of 5 to 600, went out from Augusta, GA on an expedition to catch patriot Col. William Harden, who by one account had only 76 rangers.

In 1783, after receiving a copy of the provisional treaty on 13 March, Congress proclaimed a formal end to hostilities with Great Britain.

In 1803, in one of the great diplomatic surprises, French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand offered to sell all of the Louisiana Territory to the United States.

In 1862, Fort Pulaski, guarding the mouth of the Savannah River in Georgia, surrendered after a two-day Union bombardment that tore great holes in the massive fort.

In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln spoke to a crowd outside the White House, saying, “We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.” It was the last public address Lincoln would deliver.

In 1888, 24-year-old Henry Ford married Clara Jane Bryant on her 22nd birthday at her parents’ home in Greenfield Township, Michigan.

In 1890, Ellis Island, New York, was designated as an immigration station.

In 1898, President William McKinley asked Congress to declare war on Spain.

In 1899, the treaty ending the Spanish-American War was declared in effect.

In 1900, the U.S. Navy acquired its first submarine, designed by Irish immigrant John P. Holland. Propelled by gasoline while on the surface and by electricity when submerged, the Holland served as a model for modern submarine design.

In 1917, with the outbreak of World War I, the President issued an executive order transferring 30 lighthouse tenders to the War Department. All were subsequently assigned to the Navy Department and 15 lighthouse tenders, four lightships, and 21 light stations to the Navy Department.

In 1921, KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcast the first live sporting event on the radio, a boxing match between Johnny Ray and Johnny Dundee.

In 1921, Iowa became the first state to impose a cigarette tax.

In 1945, the American Third Army liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar, Germany, a camp that would be judged second only to Auschwitz in the horrors it imposed on its prisoners.

In 1951, U.S. President Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his command of the United Nations and U.S. forces during the Korean War, citing the general's insubordination and unwillingness to conduct a limited war.

In 1967, Harlem (NYC) voters defied Congress and re-elected Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in a special election to fill the seat from which he had been expelled

In 1968, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was signed. It included the Indian Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1970, Apollo 13 launched. It was scheduled to be the third lunar landing, but the mission was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded en route to the Moon. The event was made famous for a new generation in the movie Apollo 13.

In 1974, the Judiciary Committee presented a subpoena to President Richard Nixon to produce tapes for an impeachment inquiry.

In 1976, the Apple I was created.

In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published guidelines saying sexual harassment in the workplace amounted to unlawful sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 2002, U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., D-Ohio, was convicted of taking bribes and kickbacks from businessmen and his own staff.

In 2003, on the 24th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the northern city of Mosul fell into US and Kurdish hands after an entire corps of the Iraqi army surrendered.

In 2007, charges were dropped against three former Duke University lacrosse players who were falsely accused of rape.

In 2012, George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

In 2015, for the first time in over 50 years, the presidents of the United States and Cuba met. Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, President of Cuba and brother of Fidel Castro, with whom the United States broke off diplomatic contact in 1961, shook hands and expressed a willingness to put one of the world’s highest-profile diplomatic feuds in the past.