On this date...

Parris Island Marine Corp Recruiting Depot

In 1721, with the support of Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Zabdiel Boylston began the first smallpox vaccinations in the American colonies.

In 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the mouth of the Kansas River after completing a westward trek of nearly 400 river miles.

In 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia strikes Union General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, beginning the Seven Days’ Battles.

In 1870, the first section of the Atlantic City Boardwalk opened along the New Jersey beach. Dr. Jonathan Pitney and civil engineer Richard Osborne began developing the area on Absecon Island in the early 1850s.

In 1876, Following Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s death the previous day in the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Major Marcus Reno took command of the surviving soldiers of the 7th Cavalry.

In 1884, Congress authorized the commissioning of Naval Academy graduates as ensigns.

In 1891, the Corps established its first post at Port Royal, South Carolina, later known as Parris Island.

In 1894, the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, called a general strike in sympathy with Pullman workers.

In 1917, U.S. troops entered World War I as the first troops of the American Expeditionary Force landed in Saint-Nazaire, France.

In 1918, at Belleau Woods, France, after beating off some early morning counterattacks, Major Maurice Shearer sent a signal: “Woods now entirely -US Marine Corps.”

In 1919, The New York Daily News was first published.

In 1924, following years of political intervention in the Dominican Republic by the United States, U.S. troops withdrew from the country.

In 1925, Charlie Chaplin’s comedy “The Gold Rush” premiered in Hollywood.

In 1934, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Credit Union Act into law, establishing Credit Unions.

In 1934, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Firearms Act into law, requiring registration and imposing an excise tax on firearms, including machine guns. short-barreled shotguns and rifles, and silencers; exceptions made for pistols, revolvers, and long guns.

In 1934, W.E.B. Du Bois resigned from the NAACP after reversing his stance on segregation and clashing with its leadership.

In 1945, the United Nations Charter was signed by 50 countries in San Francisco.

In 1948, American writer Shirley Jackson’s best-known work, the short story The Lottery, was first published in The New Yorker; the tale is a powerful allegory of barbarism and social sacrifice.

In 1950, President Harry S. Truman authorized the Air Force and Navy to enter the Korean conflict.

In 1959, in a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II, the St. Lawrence Seaway was officially opened, creating a navigational channel from the Atlantic Ocean to all the Great Lakes.

In 1963, JFK delivered the famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.

In 1971, the U.S. Justice Department issued a warrant for Daniel Ellsberg, accusing him of giving away the Pentagon Papers. The infamous Pentagon Papers gave insights into the Johnson administration’s thinking on the Vietnam War.

In 1973, Former White House counsel John W. Dean told the Senate Watergate Committee about an “enemies list” kept by the Nixon White House.

In 1974, the Universal Product Code (UPC) was scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.

In 1975, two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement were killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier was later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial.

In 1977, Elvis Presley performed at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. It was his last public concert.

In 1979, after almost 20 years of professional fights, heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali announced his retirement from boxing.

In 1987, Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. announced his retirement.

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush, who had campaigned for office on a pledge of “no new taxes,” conceded that tax increases would have to be included in any deficit-reduction package.

In 1991, A Kentucky medical examiner announced that test results showed President Zachary Taylor had died in 1850 of natural causes—and not arsenic poisoning, as speculated by a writer. Taylor’s remains were exhumed so that tissue samples could be taken.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton announced the U.S. had launched missiles against Iraqi targets because of “compelling evidence” that Iraq had plotted to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush.

In 1996, the US Senate Science, Technology, and Space Subcommittee sent a live audio feed over the Internet for the first time. The proceedings were on online commerce and encryption software.

In 1996, in the case of United States v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admission policy violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. (VMI enrolled its first female cadets the following year.)

In 2001, George Trofimoff (74), a retired US Army Reserve officer, was convicted in Tampa for spying for Moscow for 22 years while serving as a civilian interrogator of refugees and defectors in Germany.

In 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia as it affirmed, 5-4, that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to gun ownership.

In 2013, in United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act provision defining marriage for federal purposes as a legal union between one man and one woman.

In 2015, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in the US.

In 2018, the US Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s travel ban against mostly Muslim countries.

In 2025, Anna Wintour announces she is stepping down as editor-in-chief of American Vogue after 37 years.