On this date...

Mary Campbell Plaque

In 1758, Ten-year-old Mary Campbell was abducted in Pennsylvania by Lenape tribesmen during the French and Indian War. She was returned six and a half years later.

In 1832, the first national convention of the Democratic Party was held in Baltimore, Maryland.

In 1856, during the small civil war known as Bleeding Kansas—a dispute over control of the new US territory of Kansas under the doctrine of popular sovereignty—the town of Lawrence was sacked by a pro-slavery mob intent on destroying the “hotbed of abolitionism.”

In 1863, Nathaniel Banks, commander of the Union Department of the Gulf, surrounded the Confederate stronghold at Port Hudson and attacked.

1864 Battle of Spotsylvania Court House of the US Civil War ended inclusively with an estimated 32,000 casualties on both sides

In 1881, the American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton.

In 1908, some lucky audience members in Chicago watched the first horror movie in American history: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella was advertised as “thrilling” and “marvelous.” Because no copies of the film are known to survive, modern audiences can only imagine whether it lived up to the hype.

In 1914, Greyhound Bus Company was founded by Carl Wickman in Hibbing, Minnesota.

In 1924, 14-year-old Bobby Franks was murdered in a “thrill killing” carried out by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb (Bobby’s distant cousin).

In 1927, American aviator Charles Lindbergh completed the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, traveling from New York to Paris in the monoplane Spirit of Saint Louis in about 33.5 hours.

In 1932, American aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to pilot an airplane solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1933, the Mount Davidson Cross in San Francisco was lit by FDR via telegraph.

In 1941, a German U-boat sank the American merchant steamship SS Robin Moor in the South Atlantic after the ship’s passengers and crew were allowed to board lifeboats.

In 1944, during WWII, the West Loch Disaster explosion occurred during munition loading, killing at least 160 sailors, injuring nearly 400, destroying six ships, and damages 3 piers and several buildings at Pearl Harbor U.S. Naval Base in Oahu, Hawaii; details were kept classified until the early 1960s

In 1955, Chuck Berry recorded his first single, “Maybellene,” for Chess Records in Chicago.

In 1956, the first known airborne US hydrogen bomb was tested over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

In 1961, Governor Patterson declared martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.

In 1969, Robert F. Kennedy’s murderer, Sirhan Sirhan, was sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment.

In 1979, former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the slayings of Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk. Outrage over White’s lenient sentence sparked the White Night riots that evening.

In 1980, Ensign Jean Marie Butler became the first woman to graduate from a US service academy, accepting her degree and commission from the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.

In 1999, All My Children star Susan Lucci finally won a Daytime Emmy after being nominated 19 times, the longest period of unsuccessful nominations in television history.

In 2002, the Bush administration announced that it would resume economic aid to Yugoslavia because it had met requirements to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

In 2009, four men were arrested for planning to bomb two synagogues and destroy military aircraft in New York, United States.

In 2017, after years of declining attendance—in part due to animal rights protests—the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus gave what it said would be its final performance. (In 2023, the circus returned with an animal-free show.)

In 2018, the US Justice Department said it was expanding its internal investigation into whether the FBI had infiltrated Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign