On this date...

Dick Clark

In 1755, General Edward Braddock’s British army was thoroughly defeated in the Battle of the Monongahela during the French and Indian War.

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read aloud to the American troops in New York City by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, George Washington. The words have an immediate effect. Cheering soldiers and townspeople surge down Broadway to Bowling Green, where they wrench the gilded lead statue of King George III down. The crowd mutilates the royal figure, and much of the lead is later melted into bullets.

In 1793, Vermont completed revisions to its constitution and became the first state in the United States to prohibit slavery.

In 1846, an American naval captain occupied the small settlement of Yerba Buena, a site that would later be renamed San Francisco.

In 1846, the District of Columbia territory south of the Potomac River (39 mi² or about 100 km²) was returned to Virginia by an Act of Congress.

In 1862, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan captured Tompkinsville, Kentucky.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified in the US, granting citizenship to African Americans.

In 1868, Louisiana and South Carolina were the last states to ratify the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing civil rights.

In 1872, a donut cutter patent was granted to John Blondel of Thomaston, Maine.

In 1878, American inventor Henry Tibbe patented an improved corncob pipe design.

In 1893, Surgeon Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful open-heart surgery when he repaired the torn pericardium of a knife wound patient, James Cornish, without the use of penicillin or blood transfusion.

In 1896, William Jennings Bryant delivered his famous “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

In 1914, the Boston Red Sox purchased the contract of future Baseball Hall of Fame slugger Babe Ruth from the minor-league Baltimore Orioles.

In 1918, 101 people were killed in a train collision in Nashville, Tennessee, in the deadliest US rail disaster in history.

In 1918, William Faulkner, who would go on to become one of America’s most iconic Southern authors, joined the Royal Air Force on this day but would never see combat because World War I ended before he completed on this day, but will never see combat because World War I will end before he completes his training.

In 1937, a fire at 20th Century Fox’s storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, destroyed most of the studio’s silent films.

In 1944, during World War II, American forces secured Saipan as the last Japanese defenses fell.

In 1948, Satchel Paige, a longtime Negro League star, made his Major League debut with the Cleveland Indians, becoming the oldest rookie in history. “Age is a question of mind over matter,” he says. “If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

In 1951, US President Harry Truman asked Congress to formally end the state of war with Germany.

In 1955, Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and His Comets became the first rock-and-roll single to hit number one on Billboard’s pop charts.

In 1956, Dick Clark’s first appearance as host of American Bandstand

In 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev traded verbal threats over the future of Cuba. In the following years, Cuba became a dangerous focus in the Cold War competition between the United States and Russia.

In 1960, the Thresher, the first of a class of U.S. nuclear-powered attack submarines, was launched; it sank in 1963 in the worst submarine accident in history.

In 1962, Andy Warhol’s iconic “Campbell’s Soup Cans” debuted.

In 1971, four miles south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), about 500 U.S. troops of the 1st Brigade, 5th Mechanized Division turned over Fire Base Charlie 2 to Saigon troops, completing the transfer of defense responsibilities for the border area.

In 1971, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger secretly visited the People’s Republic of China to negotiate a detente between the US and China.

In 1987, Colonel Oliver North admitted to shredding Iran-Contra evidence.

In 1992, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton tapped Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee to be his running mate.

In 1995, American psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead performed their last concert at Soldier Field in Chicago; lead guitarist and vocalist Jerry Garcia died the following month.

In 1997, boxer Mike Tyson was banned from the ring and fined $3 million for biting opponent Evander Holyfield’s ear.

In 2002, fearing that there would not be enough eligible players to continue, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig stopped the annual All-Star Game in the 11th inning with the score tied at 7–7.

In 2004, a Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded the CIA had provided unfounded assessments of the threat posed by Iraq that the Bush administration had relied on to justify going to war.

In 2010, the largest U.S.-Russia spy swap since the Cold War was completed on a remote stretch of Vienna airport tarmac as planes from New York and Moscow arrived within minutes of each other with 10 Russian sleeper agents and four prisoners accused by Russia of spying for the West.

In 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to fill the seat left vacant by the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an 1833 treaty still applies to the Muscogee Nation, also known as the Creek. In McGirt v. Oklahoma, the court holds 5-4 that, while still falling under federal jurisdiction, nearly half of Oklahoma remains Indian land and is not subject to state jurisdiction in cases involving major crimes.

In 2023, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese economic leaders ended 2 days of talks in Beijing, aimed at stabilizing relations between the world's two biggest economies [1]