On this date...

Pierre Jean De Smet

In 1586, English colonists sailed from Roanoke Island, North Carolina.

In 1776, Hard labor continued in New York City as defensive works were built. Washington directs a working party of 900 men to parade tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. “On the present emergency, all working parties to work ’till Six o’Clock in the afternoon,” he writes.

In 1776, John Hancock writes that he has urged New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut to authorize Washington to call out militia as necessary—an expansion of the General’s power to respond quickly if the British attack.

In 1778, George Washington’s Continental Army troops finally left Valley Forge, their winter encampment.

In 1846, the first recorded game of baseball was played.

In 1856, at Music Hall in Philadelphia, the first national convention of the Republican Party, founded two years earlier, concluded. John Charles Fremont of California, the famous explorer of the West, was nominated for the presidency, and William Lewis Dayton of New Jersey was chosen as the vice-presidential candidate.

In 1861, Francis Pierpont was elected provisional governor of West Virginia.

In 1864, the most successful and feared Confederate commerce raider of the war, the CSS, was sunk after a spectacular battle off the coast of France with the USS Kearsarge.

In 1865, General Order No. 3, a decree delivered by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger on this day to the residents of Galveston, Texas. Today, it is known as Juneteenth.

In 1868, attempting to convince local Native Americans to make peace with the United States, the Jesuit missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet meets with the Sioux leader Sitting Bull in present-day Montana.

In 1900, the Republican Party nominated President William McKinley for re-election but chose a new candidate for Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1905, some 450 people attended the opening day of the world’s first notable nickelodeon, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and developed by the brilliant Vaudeville impresario and showman Harry Davis.

In 1910, the first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington.

In 1912, Tennessee University was established (as the Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State Normal School for Negroes) in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1934, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was organized in the United States.

In 1941, US President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Two Ocean Navy Expansion Act, which increased the size of the US Navy by 70%.

In 1944, during World War II, the Japanese Combined Fleet and the US Fifth Fleet engaged in a major air-and-sea battle, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which ended the next day with a US victory.

In 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for espionage.

In 1956, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin ended their partnership after 10 years and 16 films.

In 1961, the US Supreme Court struck down a provision in Maryland’s constitution requiring state office holders to believe in God.

In 1964, the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved by the US Senate, 73-27, after surviving a lengthy filibuster.

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed 73-27.

In 1968, a long-term anti-poverty demonstration known as Resurrection City reached its high-water mark. On “Solidarity Day,” over 50,000 people flock to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to protest, sing, hear speeches, and demonstrate on behalf of national legislation to address the plight of the American poor.

In 1975, former Chicago organized crime boss Sam Giancana was shot to death in the basement of his home in Oak Park, Illinois; the killing has never been solved.

In 1978, Garfield, created by Jim Davis, first appeared as a comic strip.

In 1987, the US Supreme Court, in the case Edwards v. Aguillard, struck down a Louisiana law requiring public schools that taught the theory of evolution also to teach creation science.

In 2018, US Ambassador Nikki Haley announced the US was leaving the UN Human Rights Council.

In 2019, the first debate for a decade in Congress over reparations for slavery, with Danny Glover one of the witnesses

In 2019, Joy Harjo, renowned for evocative poetry that weaves Indigenous culture and personal narrative, was appointed America’s first Native American poet laureate, a historic moment celebrating her powerful voice and rich storytelling.

In 2023, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing [1]