On this date...

In 1762, Ann Franklin published the Newport Mercury, becoming the first American female editor and publisher and the first woman inducted into the University of Rhode Island’s Journalism Hall of Fame.

In 1775, England’s King George III declared the American colonies to be in a state of open rebellion.

In 1776, the British arrived at Long Island, between Gravesend and New Utrecht, with “near twenty-four thousand men ready to land in a moment,” according to one observer.

In 1777, with the approach of General Benedict Arnold’s army, British Colonel Barry St. Ledger abandoned Fort Stanwix and returned to Canada.

In 1816, the Revenue Cutter Active, under the command of Revenue Captain Steven White and acting under orders of the Collector at Baltimore, took possession of the Spanish brig Servia, recently departed from Baltimore, which was anchored in the Patuxent River.

In 1846, the United States annexed New Mexico.

In 1851, the first America’s Cup was won by the American yacht America in a race around the Isle of Wight.

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln wrote a carefully worded letter in response to an abolitionist editorial by Horace Greeley, the editor of the influential New York Tribune. He hinted at a change in his policy concerning slavery.

In 1862, Confederate Major General J.E.B. Stuart, in a retaliatory raid, captured the dress coat of Union General John Pope at Catlett Station, Virginia.

In 1865, William Sheppard received the first U.S. patent for liquid soap.

In 1877, 800 Nez Perce Native Americans, fleeing the US Army and attempting to reach Canada, retreated into Yellowstone National Park.

In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. chief executive to ride in an automobile, in Hartford, Conn.

In 1911, President William Taft vetoed a joint resolution of Congress granting statehood to Arizona. Taft vetoed the resolution because he believed a provision in the state constitution authorizing the recall of judges was a blow at the independence of the judiciary. The offending clause was removed, and Arizona was admitted to statehood on February 14, 1912. Afterward, the state restored the article in its constitution.

In 1921, J. Edgar Hoover was appointed Assistant Director of the Bureau of Investigation

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard M. Nixon were nominated for second terms by the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.

In 1962, The N.S. Savannah, the world’s first atomic-powered merchant ship, arrives in Savannah, Georgia, the first stop on its maiden voyage to promote peaceful uses of nuclear power. Some foreign ports refuse it, fearing catastrophe.

In 1965, a fourteen-minute brawl ensued between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers after Giants pitcher Juan Marichal struck Dodgers catcher John Roseboro in the head with a baseball bat. (Marichal and Roseboro would later reconcile and become lifelong friends.)

In 1966, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), later renamed the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), was formed.

In 1972, 3,000 antiwar demonstrators harass delegates entering the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, many painted with death masks. Demonstrations outside the meeting hall mark the rest of the convention; hundreds of protestors are arrested, and many are injured when police use riot-control agents.

In 1972, John Wojtowicz (WAHT’-uh-witz) and Salvatore Naturile took seven employees hostage at a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Brooklyn, New York, during a botched robbery; the siege, which ended with Wojtowicz’s arrest and Naturile’s killing by the FBI, inspired the 1975 movie “Dog Day Afternoon.”

In 1973, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon named Henry A. Kissinger Secretary of State.

In 1986, Kerr-McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of Karen Silkwood $1.38 million, settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit.

In 1989, in a game against the Oakland Athletics, Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers struck out Rickey Henderson to become the first MLB pitcher to reach 5,000 strikeouts; he ended his career with a record-setting 5,714 strikeouts.

In 1989, Black Panthers co-founder Huey P. Newton was shot to death in Oakland, California.

In 1992, on the second day of a standoff at Randy Weaver’s remote northern Idaho cabin atop Ruby Ridge, FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi wounded Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris, and then killed Weaver’s wife, Vicki.

In 1994, on August 22, 1994, court papers filed in Los Angeles Superior Court disclosed DNA test results showing that O.J. Simpson’s blood genetically matches blood in the trail leading from the murder scene of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform legislation that ended guaranteed cash payments to people experiencing poverty and required recipients to work.

In 1998, President Clinton, in his Saturday radio address, announced he had signed an executive order putting Osama bin Laden’s Islamic Army on a list of terrorist groups.

In 2001, the space shuttle Discovery returned and brought home 3 crew members, Yuri Usachev, Susan Helms, and Jim Voss, who had spent nearly 6 months on the Int’l Space Station.

In 2003, Alabama’s chief justice, Roy Moore, was suspended for his refusal to obey a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of his courthouse.

In 2007, A Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Iraq, killing all 14 U.S. soldiers aboard.

In 2021, Josephine Baker will be the first Black woman to be interred in the Panthéon in Paris, according to the French government.