On this date...

Meclenburg Declaration of Independence.

In 1639, Dorchester, Mass., formed the 1st school funded by local taxes.

In 1774, upset by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property by American colonists, King George III of England gave his royal consent to three of the four Coercive Acts, to the outrage of American Patriots.

In 1775, North Carolina became the first colony to declare its independence. Citizens of Mecklenburg County, NC, declared independence from Britain.

In 1801, four warships were sent to the Mediterranean to protect American commerce from Barbary pirates.

In 1815, Commodore Stephen Decatur ( Frigate Guerriere) sails with 10 ships to suppress Mediterranean pirates’ raids on U.S. shipping.

In 1830, the first railroad timetable was published in a newspaper (Baltimore American).

In 1844, the USS Constitution sailed from New York on a round-the-world cruise.

In 1861, North Carolina voted to secede from the Union.

In 1861, the cornerstone of the University of Washington was laid in Seattle.

In 1861, U.S. marshals appropriated the previous year’s telegraph dispatches to reveal pro-secessionist evidence.

In 1861, the capital of the Confederacy was moved from Montgomery, Ala., to Richmond, Va.

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which was intended to encourage settlements west of the Mississippi River by making federal land available for private ownership and farming. About 10% of the United States’ land area (270 million acres, or 1.1 million square km) would be privatized by 1934.

In 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis were granted a patent for trousers reinforced with rivets—the origin of what we now call “jeans.” Strauss provided the money, and Davis, a tailor whose hard-working clients needed durable pants, came up with the design. Blue jeans have since become a wardrobe staple.

In 1891, the first public display of Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope was shown to members of the National Federation of Women’s Clubs.

In 1893, the second city named Amarillo was officially established as the new county seat of Potter County. The original Amarillo, which had also served as the county seat, was founded in 1887. That town was later determined to be subject to flooding, leading to the selection of a new site.

In 1899, the first speeding infraction by a New York cabbie driving an electric car at 12 mph on Lexington Avenue

In 1902, Cuba gained its independence from the United States, which had taken control of the island in 1899 after defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War.

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France.

In 1932, Amelia Earhart departed from Newfoundland, Canada, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

In 1939, Regular trans-Atlantic air service began as a Pan American Airways plane took off from Port Washington, N.Y., bound for Europe.

In 1940, the first successful helicopter flight in the U.S., Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, designed by Igor Sikorsky, was demonstrated to the public at Bridgeport Airport in Stratford, Connecticut.

In 1945, on Okinawa, American troops secured Chocolate Drop Hill after fighting in the interconnecting tunnels.

In 1956, the United States exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

In 1959, Japanese-Americans regained their citizenship.

In 1961, a white mob attacked a busload of Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama, prompting the federal government to send in U.S. marshals to restore order.

In 1969, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured Ap Bia Mountain, referred to as “Hamburger Hill” by the Americans, following one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.

In 1985, Radio Marti, operated by the U.S. government, began broadcasting. Cuba responded by attempting to jam its signal.

In 1989, Sunday Silence edged by Easy Goer to win the closest race in the 114-year history of the Preakness Stakes by a nose. Sunday Silence had already beaten Easy Goer in the Kentucky Derby by two-and-a-half lengths, putting the horse one victory away from winning the first Triple Crown since 1978.

In 1990, the first photograph was sent from the Hubble Space Telescope.

In 1992, to combat the scourge of graffiti vandalism, the Chicago City Council enacted an ordinance banning the retail sale of spray paint and large markers within city limits, calling them “weapons of terror.”

In 1995, President Bill Clinton announced that the two-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House would be permanently closed to traffic as a security measure.

In 1996, in a victory for the gay and lesbian civil rights movement, the U.S. Supreme Court voted six to three to strike down an amendment to Colorado’s state constitution that would have prevented any city, town, or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of gays and lesbians.

In 2003, the reality TV series “America’s Next Top Model,” created by Tyra Banks, debuted on UPN.

In 2005, ex-teacher and convicted sex offender Mary Kay Letourneau, 43, married her former student and the father of two of her children, Vili Fualaau, 22. Just nine months earlier, Letourneau had been released from prison after serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for raping an underage Fualaau.

In 2015, four of the world’s biggest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup’s banking unit Citicorp, Barclays, and the Royal Bank of Scotland — agreed to pay more than $5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to rigging the currency markets.

In 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump began his 1st foreign trip, arriving in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia