On this date...

Bessie Coleman

In 1648, Margaret Jones became the first person executed for witchcraft in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In 1775, the Second Continental Congress voted to appoint George Washington as the leader of the Continental Army, which had been authorized just one day earlier.

In 1776, the Assembly of the Lower Counties of Pennsylvania declared itself independent of British and Pennsylvanian authority, thereby creating the state of Delaware.

In 1776, New York Harbor is restless. Last night, boats passed Governor’s Island despite sentinels firing more than 30 muskets at them. The crews answered defiantly, kept going, and, once out of range, gave a “huzzah!”

In 1776, at headquarters, Washington faced constant supply issues. Colonel Alexander McDougall, commander of the 1st New York Regiment, reports that clothing is ruinously expensive: A soldier’s shirt costs nearly half a month’s pay, and his men are unpaid, uneasy, and at risk of desertion.

In 1836, Arkansas became the twenty-fifth state.

In 1842, John C. Frémont set off from Kansas River on his first expedition of the Oregon Trail with frontierman Kit Carson as his guide.

In 1844, Charles Goodyear received a patent for the process of rubber vulcanization.

In 1846, the United States and Britain signed the Oregon Treaty, establishing the border between Canada and the United States at latitude 49° N.

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation in which he called for the mustering of new militia in the Mid-Atlantic states of Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio—in part to help protect Washington, D.C., America’s capital city.

In 1864, Arlington National Cemetery was established when 200 acres (81 hectares) of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s estate in Virginia—which the U.S. government had seized—were authorized for use as a national cemetery.

In 1864, during the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia collide for the last time as the first wave of Union troops attacks Petersburg, a vital Southern rail center 23 miles south of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

In 1869, the world’s 1st plastic celluloid was patented by John Wesley Hyatt in Albany, NY.

In 1902, the 20th Century Limited, an express passenger train between New York and Chicago, began service.

In 1904, more than 1,000 people died when fire erupted aboard the steamboat PS General Slocum in New York’s East River; it remained the deadliest individual event in the New York area until 9/11.

In 1907, Researcher George Soper published the results of his investigation into recent typhoid outbreaks in the New York area. He announced that Mary Mallon [Typhoid Mary] was the likely source of the outbreak.

In 1916, the Boeing Model 1 [B & W Seaplane], Boeing’s first aircraft, flew for the first time.

In 1917, some two months after America’s formal entrance into World War I against Germany, the United States Congress passed the Espionage Act.

In 1921, Bessie Coleman earned her pilot license in France, becoming the 1st African-American woman and Native American to hold one.

In 1924, J. Edgar Hoover assumed leadership of the FBI.

In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an act making the National Guard part of the U.S. Army in the event of war or national emergency.

In 1934, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most-visited national park in the United States, was established by Congress.

In 1938, Johnny Vander Meer of the Cincinnati Reds became the only baseball pitcher to toss two consecutive no-hitters, leading the Reds to a 6-0 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers in the first night game at Ebbets Field, four days after no-hitting the Boston Bees by a score of 3-0.

In 1944, during World War II, U.S. Marines attacked Saipan in the Mariana Islands.

In 1944, American aircraft bombarded German-occupied Budapest with leaflets threatening “punishment” for those responsible for the deportation of Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

In 1955, the Eisenhower administration staged the first annual “Operation Alert” (OPAL) exercise, an attempt to assess the USA’s preparations for a nuclear attack

In 1964, at a meeting of the National Security Council, McGeorge Bundy, national security advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson, informed those in attendance that President Johnson had decided to postpone submitting a resolution to Congress asking for authority to wage war.

In 1967, Governor Reagan signed the liberalized California abortion bill.

In 1969, the variety show “Hee Haw” premiered on CBS.

In 1974, Simon & Schuster published All the President’s Men, the first definitive book about the Watergate scandal, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters at The Washington Post who broke the explosive story.

In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle erroneously instructed a Trenton, N.J., elementary school student to spell potato as “potatoe” during a spelling bee.

In 1995, during his murder trial, O.J. Simpson struggled to don a pair of gloves that prosecutors said were worn by the killer of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

In 2003, a jury in Houston convicted accounting firm Arthur Andersen of obstruction of justice.

In 2006, a divided Supreme Court made it easier for police to barge into homes and seize evidence without knocking or waiting.

In 2007, after more than 30 years, American game show host Bob Barker stepped down as host of The Price Is Right.

In 2012, 33-year-old aerialist Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk across a high wire stretched over Niagara Falls, which lies on the border between New York state and Ontario, Canada. More than 100,000 people gather at the falls, and 10 million viewers watch on television.

In 2019, a baseball jersey belonging to Babe Ruth became the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia when it sold for $5.64 million at auction in New York

In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court, with a 6-3 vote in its Bostock v. Clayton County decision, ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay, lesbian, and transgender people from discrimination in employment.