On this date...

Octavia Butler

In 1607, Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was established by members of the Virginia Company.

In 1767, British government disbands American import duty on tea.

In 1776, Troubling intelligence seems to come from every direction. From Connecticut, lawyer Jonathan Sturges warns that men seized aboard a small sloop confess they are bound for Long Island to join British forces, suggesting a growing Loyalist plot.

In 1776, From the Hudson Highlands, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Beekman Livingston reports garrisons in a “most deplorable Situation,” lacking supplies, boats, and proper care for the sick. His alarm underscores a larger truth: The American defense is stretched thin.

In 1779 at South Carolina coast, South Carolina Captain Farrow and his schooner Tomlinson was captured by Loyalist Capt. Goodrich and ordered to go to New York.

In 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention began to assemble in Philadelphia to confront a daunting task: the peaceful overthrow of the new American government as defined by the Articles of Confederation.

In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on their famous expedition.

In 1836, Texas’ interim president, David G. Burnet, signed two treaties at the town of Velasco with Mexico’s leader, Antonio López de Santa Anna. Neither treaty was honored, though both paved the way for Texas’ independence as a sovereign republic.

In 1853, Land surveyor, newspaper publisher, and inventor Gail Borden patents his process for condensed milk.

In 1896, the lowest US temperature in May was recorded (-10°F /-23°C at Climax, Colorado).

In 1904, the Third Olympiad of the modern era, and the first Olympic Games to be held in the United States, opened in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1921, Florence Allen is the first female judge to sentence a man to death in Ohio.

In 1932, nearly 100,000 people paraded down Fifth Avenue in New York City, chanting “We want beer!” The demonstration, led by the city's mayor, was intended to show lawmakers just how strongly public sentiment had turned against Prohibition, which had made the manufacture, sale, import, or transport of alcohol illegal in the United States. Within a year, Americans could, legally, buy beer again.

In 1942, the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps was established.

In 1945, Physician Joseph G. Hamilton injects misdiagnosed cancer patient Albert Stevens (CAL-1) with 131 kBq (3.55 µCi) of plutonium without his knowledge. Stevens lives another 20 years, surviving the highest known accumulated radiation dose in any human.

In 1949, US President Harry Truman signs bill establishing a rocket test range at Cape Canaveral.

In 1961, Freedom Rider civil rights activists were attacked by violent mobs in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama.

In 1973, Skylab, the first US space station, launched.

In 1974, Underground America Day is 1st observed to honor the 6,000 Americans that make their homes in the Earth.

In 1988, Carrollton bus collision: a drunk driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, United States hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group. The crash and ensuing fire kill 27.

In 1997, Baseball's Executive Council suspends NY Yankees owner George Steinbrenner for his suing other team owners

In 1998, the last episode of the television sitcom Seinfeld aired. Ostensibly a show about nothing, it remains a landmark of American popular culture.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton apologized directly to Chinese President Jiang Zemin on the phone for the accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, that had taken place six days earlier.

In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no exception in federal law for people to use marijuana to ease their pain from cancer, AIDS, or other illnesses.

In 2007, DaimlerChrysler said it was selling almost all of Chrysler to a private equity firm for $7.4 billion, backing out of a troubled 1998 takeover.

In 2007, the trial of suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla opened in Miami. (Padilla was later convicted of terrorism conspiracy and sentenced to 17 years in prison.)

In 2008, the Interior Department declared the polar bear a threatened species because of the loss of Arctic sea ice.

In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association that the federal government could not prevent states from authorizing sports gambling. The decision became the basis for the legal sports betting industry in the United States.

In 2018, Successful memory transfer in snails achieved by scientists from University of California published in journal "eNeuro".

In 2022, an 18-year-old white supremacist wearing body armor opened fire in a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people before being taken into custody. (The gunman, Payton Gendron, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in February 2023.)

2022 Octavia E. Butler receives the first-ever Infinity Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, an award given to those who have died before they could be considered for a Grand Master award