On this date...
In 1778, after almost nine months of occupation, 15,000 British troops under General Sir Henry Clinton evacuated Philadelphia, the former U.S. capital.
In 1798, President John Adams oversaw the passage of the Naturalization Act, the first of four controversial pieces of legislation collectively known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Strong political opposition to these acts undermined the Adams administration, helping Thomas Jefferson win the presidency in 1800.
In 1812, the US declared war against Great Britain, marking the beginning of the War of 1812.
In 1847, American photographer Thomas Martin Easterly took the earliest known photograph of lightning using the daguerreotype process in St. Louis, Missouri.
In 1864, Siege of Petersburg: Ulysses S. Grant ends four days of assaults and begins a nine-month siege.
In 1873, American suffragist Susan B. Anthony was fined after being convicted for voting in the 1872 presidential election, though she refused to pay it; in 2020, President Donald Trump pardoned Anthony, but the move was criticized by those who argued that it validated the trial.
In 1912, the Chicago National Republican Convention split between President Taft and Theodore Roosevelt; after Taft was nominated, Roosevelt and progressive elements of the Party formed the Progressive Party (also known as the ‘Bull Moose Party’)
In 1934, in a major reversal of federal policy toward Native Americans, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Indian Reorganization Act into law. Also known as the IRA, the Indian New Deal, and the Wheeler-Howard Act, the act granted Native Americans in the United States a new degree of autonomy, giving them greater control over their lands and allowing them to form legally recognized tribal governments.
In 1936, the first bicycle traffic court in America was established in Racine, Wisconsin.
In 1948, the American Library Association adopted the Library Bill of Rights.
In 1959, Governor of Louisiana Earl K. Long was committed to a state mental hospital; he responded by having the hospital’s director fired and replaced with a crony who proceeded to proclaim him perfectly sane.
In 1972, the US Supreme Court, 5-3, affirmed lower-court rulings in the Curt Flood case, upholding baseball’s exemption from antitrust laws (Flood v. Kuhn).
In 1973, Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev visited the US and met with President Nixon.
In 1976, Bowie Kuhn voided Oakland A’s sales of players, totaling $35 million - Joe Rudi & Rollie Fingers to the Boston Red Sox, and Vida Blue to the New York Yankees.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter hosted the first White House Jazz Festival; performers included Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, Ornette Coleman, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Cecil Taylor, Zoot Sims, Herbie Hancock, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Chick Corea, George Benson, McCoy Tyner, and Ron Carter.
In 1979, the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) II treaty was signed by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
In 1981, the AIDS epidemic was formally recognized by medical professionals in San Francisco, California.
In 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.
In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Georgia v. McCollum, ruled that criminal defendants could not use race as a basis for excluding potential jurors from their trials.
In 1996, Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, was indicted on ten criminal counts.
In 2003, Google launched AdSense, a program that enables website publishers to serve ads targeted to the specific content of their individual web pages, many of which, like On This Day (then HistoryOrb.com), go on to start their own publishing businesses.
In 2006, Prelate Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, becoming the first woman chosen as a churchwide leader in the 400-year history of the Anglican Communion.
In 2018, President Donald Trump announced that he was directing the Pentagon to create the Space Force as an independent branch of the United States Armed Forces.
In 2020, the Supreme Court, in the case of Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, rejected by a 5-4 decision President Donald Trump’s effort to end legal protections for more than 650,000 young immigrants.
In 2022, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather for the treatment she received when she declined an Oscar on behalf of actor Marlon Brando in 1973.
In 2023, five people died after a submersible imploded while exploring the wreckage of the Titanic.
In 2023, Antony Blinken is the first US Secretary of State in five years to meet with senior Chinese officials in Beijing, aiming to re-establish regular communications.
IN 2024, US President Joe Biden announces an executive action to enable 500,000 spouses and children of US citizens to apply for citizenship without leaving the country [1]
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