On this date...

In 1630, New Amsterdam’s governor bought Gull Island from Indians for cargo and renamed it Oyster Island. It later became Ellis Island.

In 1774, Citizens of Carlisle, Penn., passed a declaration of independence.

In 1776, Admiral Richard Howe’s fleet of 82 ships arrived at Staten Island. This fleet, along with other ships arriving before and after, carried the largest British expeditionary force ever to be assembled.

In 1776, Washington meets with his council of war in New York and proposes an attack on Staten Island, where British forces are encamped. The council rejects a general assault as too risky, so Washington urges a smaller strike to “alarm the Enemy & encourage our own Troops.” Then the afternoon breaks open. HMS Phoenix and HMS Rose ride a brisk wind toward the Hudson. Alarm guns sound, American batteries thunder, and smoke rolls over the city. The ships answer with broadsides and keep moving, exposing New York’s vulnerability.

In 1776, the Dickinson Draft of the Articles of Confederation was presented before the Second Continental Congress. John Dickinson, the delegate from Delaware, was the principal writer.

In 1780, the Battle of Williamson’s Plantation in South Carolina occurred. It was also known as Huck’s Defeat.

In 1804, Alexander Hamilton died from a wound suffered in a duel on July 11th with Vice President Aaron Burr.

In 1812, United States forces led by Gen. William Hull entered Canada during the War of 1812 against Britain. (Hull retreated shortly thereafter to Detroit.)

In 1843, Mormon leader Joseph Smith said God allows polygamy.

In 1859, William Goodale patented paper bag manufacturing machines in Massachusetts.

In 1861, in a postal station in Rock Creek, Nebraska, a legend was born. The man who would become known as Wild Bill Hickok is said to have fought his first gunfight there. Then known as “Duck Bill” (a derogatory reference to Hickok’s thin lips), Hickok confronted a group of men led by local bully and landowner David McCanles over the station’s rent, leaving McCanles and two of his men dead.

In 1861, Special Commissioner Albert Pike completes treaties with the members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, giving the new Confederate States of America several allies in Indian Territory. Some members of the tribes also fought for the Confederacy.

In 1862, the Medal of Honor, awarded for battlefield bravery, was created for the U.S. Army.

In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln became the first standing president to witness a battle as Union forces repelled Jubal Early’s army on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.

In 1896, Revere Beach, located in Revere, Massachusetts, five miles north of Boston, became the United States’ first public beach.

In 1901, MLB Boston Americans pitcher Cy Young won his 300th baseball game.

In 1909, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing for a federal income tax, and submitted it to the states. (It was declared ratified in February 1913.)

In 1916, Joseph Dunn (14) was attacked by a shark, suffering non-fatal wounds in New Jersey, the final episode in a spate of shark attacks along the Jersey coast, where 4 people died over 12 days.

In 1917, the Bisbee Deportation occurred as vigilantes kidnapped and deported nearly 1,300 striking miners and others from Bisbee, Arizona.

In 1921, Congress created the Bureau of Aeronautics to oversee all matters pertaining to naval aeronautics.

In 1933, the first three-wheeled, multi-directional Dymaxion car—designed by the architect, engineer, and philosopher Buckminster Fuller—was manufactured in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

In 1950, the first Distinguished Service Cross of the Korean War was awarded posthumously to Colonel Robert R. Martin, who single-handedly attacked an enemy tank with a rocket launcher.

In 1954, President Eisenhower put forward a plan for the Interstate Highway System

In 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first president to ride in the newest advance in aviation technology: the helicopter.

In 1965, U.S.M.C. Lieutenant Frank S. Reasoner—who became the first Marine awarded the prestigious Medal of Honor posthumously for action in Vietnam—was killed by enemy fire. He was the second Marine overall to be awarded the nation’s highest award for valor during the Vietnam War.

In 1967, rioting erupted in Newark, New Jersey, over the police beating of a Black taxi driver; 26 people were killed in the five days of violence that followed.

In 1972, George McGovern won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Miami Beach.

In 1973, a fire destroyed the entire sixth floor of the National Personnel Records Center of the United States

In 1974, President Richard Nixon’s aides G. Gordon Liddy, John Ehrlichman, and two others were convicted of conspiracy and perjury in connection with the Watergate scandal. They were convicted of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Daniel Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist.

In 1976, the television quiz show Family Feud began airing on ABC, and it became hugely popular, in part because of the personal charm and witty banter of host Richard Dawson. The show continued—with different hosts, including Steve Harvey—into the 21st century.

In 1979, during a baseball doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers at Comiskey Park, a crate of disco records was blown up as part of a promotion dubbed Disco Demolition Night. Fans rushed the field, and, as a result of the ensuing mayhem, the second game was forfeited to the Tigers.

In 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale announced his choice of U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running mate; Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major-party ticket.

In 1990, Commander Rosemary B. Mariner became the first woman to command an operational aviation squadron (VAQ-34).

In 1994, President Bill Clinton, visiting Germany, went to the eastern sector of Berlin, the first U.S. president to do so since Harry Truman.

In 1997, the prison drama "Oz" created by Tom Fontana, starring J.K. Simmons and Christopher Meloni, debuts on HBO as the channel's first original drama series

In 2001, Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant tortured in a New York City police station, agreed to an $8.7 million settlement.

In 2003, the USS Ronald Reagan, the first carrier named for a living president, was commissioned in Norfolk, Virginia.

In 2010, Roman Polanski was declared a free man, no longer confined to house arrest in his Alpine villa, after Swiss authorities rejected a U.S. request for the Oscar-winning director’s extradition because of a 32-year-old sex conviction.

In 2012, a scathing report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh said the late Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials had buried child sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade earlier to avoid bad publicity.

In 2016, Bernie Sanders endorses fellow Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a speech in New Hampshire

In 2022, Twitter sued Elon Musk to force him to complete the $44 billion acquisition of the social media company after Musk said he was backing away from his agreement to buy it. (He would eventually become Twitter’s owner three months later.)