On this date...

Shirley Temple in Stand Up and Cheer

In 1764, the English Parliament banned the American colonies from printing paper money.

In 1775, the shot heard round the world was first fired on Lexington Green in Lexington, MA. No one knows for sure who fired first, but it sparked the American Revolution, which changed human history forever and brought the idea of self-government to the world.

In 1776, it was the first anniversary of Lexington and Concord. Washington nods to the occasion by choosing “Lexington” as the day’s parole—the daily password for sentries.

Writing John Hancock, Washington argues that Native nations will not remain neutral for long. He urges Congress to engage them before British agents attempt the same. Meanwhile, Major General Artemas Ward writes from Boston that money is running short—the military treasury there is nearly exhausted.

In 1778, Marines participated in the USS Ranger’s capture and sinking of a British schooner off the coast of Ireland.

In 1782, John Adams was received by the States General in The Hague and recognized as the United States' Minister Plenipotentiary.

In 1783, George Washington proclaimed the end of hostilities.1802 – Spain reopened the New Orleans port to American merchants.

In 1809, former President Thomas Jefferson wrote up a contract for the sale of an indentured servant named John Freeman to newly sworn-in President James Madison.

In 1852, the California Historical Society was founded.

In 1861, the first blood of the American Civil War was shed when a secessionist mob in Baltimore attacked Massachusetts troops bound for Washington, D.C. Four soldiers and 12 rioters were killed.

In 1863, Union Colonel Abel Streight began a raid into northern Alabama and Georgia to cut the Western and Atlantic Railroad between Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Atlanta. The raid ended when Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest captured Streight’s entire command near Rome, Georgia.

In 1892, Charles Duryea drove the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

In 1897, the Boston Marathon was held for the first time.

In 1898, Congress passed a resolution recognizing Cuban independence and demanding that Spain relinquish authority over Cuba. President McKinley was also authorized to use military force to put the resolution into effect.

In 1919, Leslie Irvin of the United States made the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute.

In 1927, Mae West was sentenced to several days in jail, convicted of “corrupting the morals of youth” with her portrayal of a prostitute in the Broadway play Sex, which she also wrote. The incident made her famous across the United States.

In 1932, Bonnie Parker was captured in a failed hardware store burglary and subsequently jailed; a grand jury failed to indict her, however, and she was released a few months later.

In 1932, US President Herbert Hoover suggested a five-day work week.

In 1933, the United States went off the gold standard by presidential proclamation. FDR tied this with orders that 445,000 newly minted gold $20 “Double Eagle” coins be destroyed. Ten coins escaped, and one was scheduled for auction in 2002. The coin fetched $7.59 million.

In 1934, Shirley Temple appeared in her first feature-length film, "Stand Up and Cheer."

In 1939, Connecticut finally approved the Bill of Rights (148 years late)

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman officially opened the first White House bowling alley. The two-lane bowling alley, situated in the West Wing, had been constructed earlier that year.

In 1951, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his command by President Harry S. Truman, bid farewell to Congress, quoting a line from a ballad: "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."

In 1961, the Federal Communications Commission authorized regular FM stereo broadcasting starting on June 1, 1961.

In 1971, as a prelude to a massive antiwar protest, Vietnam Veterans Against the War began a five-day demonstration in Washington, D.C. The generally peaceful protest, called Dewey Canyon III in honor of the operation of the same name conducted in Laos, ended on April 23 with about 1,000 veterans throwing their combat ribbons, helmets, and uniforms on the Capitol steps, along with toy weapons. Earlier, they had lobbied with their congressmen, laid wreaths in Arlington National Cemetery, and staged mock “search and destroy” missions.

In 1977, the Supreme Court, in Ingraham v. Wright, ruled 5-4 that even severe spanking of schoolchildren by faculty members did not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

In 1982, Sally Ride was named the first American woman astronaut.

In 1987, Marge and Homer Simpson and their brood made their television debut in a two-minute segment on "The Tracey Ullman Show." There will be 48 such episodes before they get their own show in 1989.

In 1989, 47 sailors were killed when a gun turret exploded aboard the USS Iowa during training exercises in the Caribbean.

In 1993, after a 51-day standoff with U.S. federal agents, some 80 members of the millennialist Branch Davidian religious group died in a fire at their compound near Waco, Texas.

In 1995, the Murdoch Building in Oklahoma City, OK, was bombed by a domestic terrorist who has since been put to death.

In 2003, Nina Simone was awarded an honorary degree by the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

In 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv), a 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings, was taken into custody after a manhunt that had left the city virtually paralyzed. His older brother and alleged accomplice, 26-year-old Tamerlan (TAM’-ehr-luhn), was killed earlier in a furious attempt to escape police.

In 2015, Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, died a week after suffering a spinal cord injury in the back of a Baltimore police van while he was handcuffed and shackled. (Six police officers were charged. Three were acquitted, and the city’s top prosecutor eventually dropped the three remaining cases.)

In 2018, US Senator Tammy Duckworth (Illinois-D) became the first parent to bring a baby into the Senate chambers, a day after the Senate voted to allow babies on the chamber's floor.

In 2022, the Biden administration restored climate impacts, and the community cited the National Environmental Policy Act, previously removed by Donald Trump.