On this date...

Declaration of Arms 1775

In 1775, one day after restating their fidelity to King George III and wishing him “a long and prosperous reign” in the Olive Branch Petition, Congress set “forth the causes and necessity of their taking up arms” against British authority in the American colonies. The declaration also proclaimed their preference “to die free men rather than live as slaves.”

In 1776, the American Declaration of Independence was announced on the front page of the Pennsylvania Evening Gazette.

In 1777, the Siege of Fort Ticonderoga by the British ended, and the Continental troops were forced to retreat.

In 1785, the Continental Congress established the dollar as the official currency of the newly established United States, paving the way for a national monetary system.

In 1853, the National Black convention met in Rochester, NY, and ex-slave Frederick Douglass attended.

In 1854, the first official meeting of the Republican Party took place in Jackson, Mich.

In 1869, Black candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, Dr J. H. Harris, was defeated.

In 1886, Horlick’s of Wisconsin offered the first malted milk to the public.

In 1892, Striking steel workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania, fired on scabs, killing 7.

In 1893, the small town of Pomeroy, Iowa, was nearly destroyed by a tornado that killed 71 people and injured 200.

In 1898, the US Senate agreed to annex Hawaii.

In 1900, Warren Earp, the youngest of the famous clan of gun-fighting brothers, was murdered in an Arizona saloon.

In 1904, the US Democratic Party nominated little-known New York judge Alton B. Parker for president - virtually assuring the election of Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1908, American explorer Robert Peary set out on his eighth Arctic expedition, sailing from New York City for the North Pole.

In 1921, Sargeant Stubby, a bull terrier mutt, received a gold medal from America’s WWI commanding general, John Pershing, for “heroism of the highest caliber” in 17 battles, among his heroic deeds: catching a German spy by biting his legs.

In 1923, the Dr Pepper Company was incorporated in Dallas, 38 years after Dr Pepper was invented in Waco by Charles Alderton, a pharmacist at Morrison’s Old Corner Drug.

In 1928, the first full-length all-talking motion picture, Lights of New York, premiered in New York City.

In 1933, the first Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played in Chicago’s Comiskey Park.

In 1944, in Hartford, Connecticut, a fire broke out under the big top of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, killing 167 people and injuring 682. Two-thirds of those who perished were children. The cause of the fire was unknown, but it spread at incredible speed, racing up the canvas of the circus tent.

In 1945, President Truman established the Medal of Freedom.

In 1946, FBI agents arrested George “Bugs” Moran, along with fellow crooks Virgil Summers and Albert Fouts, in Kentucky. Once one of the biggest organized crime figures in America, Moran had been reduced to small bank robberies by this time. He died in prison 11 years later.

In 1956, MLB Commissioner Ford Frick inaugurated the Cy Young Award to honor baseball’s outstanding pitcher of the season.

In 1957, American tennis player Althea Gibson became the first Black player to win the women’s singles title at Wimbledon.

In 1957, the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum was dedicated in Independence, Missouri.

In 1970, California passed the first no-fault divorce law in the United States.

In 1974, Garrison Keillor’s radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion,” debuted in a live broadcast from St. Paul, Minn.

In 1976, at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, women were admitted for the first time in its history, with the induction of 81 female midshipmen.

In 2003, Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, in a New York Times op-ed, disputed President George W. Bush’s statement that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa, saying he had found no evidence to support the claim when the CIA asked him to investigate.

In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry chose Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina to be his running mate.

In 2005, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed after refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of an undercover CIA operative’s name.

In 2010, actress Lindsay Lohan was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 90 days in a residential substance-abuse program for violating her probation stemming from two separate 2007 cases of driving under the influence of cocaine and alcohol. (She served 14 days behind bars.) .

In 2020, the Trump administration formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization after President Donald Trump criticized the WHO’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. (President Joseph Biden’s administration later halted the pullout.)

In 2023, the Louis Armstrong House Museum opened a new archive facility, the Louis Armstrong Center, in Queens, NYC.