On this date...

Andrew Jackson

In 1833, In Ellicott's Mills, Maryland, President Andrew Jackson boards a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad train for a pleasure trip to Baltimore. Jackson, who had never been on a train before, was the first president to take a ride on the "Iron Horse," as locomotives were known then.

In 1856, Sitting president Franklin Pierce denied his party’s nomination for reelection

In 1865, William Quantrill, the man who gave Frank and Jesse James their first education in killing, dies from wounds sustained in a skirmish with Union soldiers in Kentucky.

In 1889, Seattle ,Washington was reduced to what the Seattle Post-Intelligencer described as “a glowing heap of ashes.” The Great Seattle Fire started when a pot of glue caught fire in a cabinetmaker’s shop, and roared through wooden buildings, planked streets, and wharfs, destroying twenty-five city blocks within hours.

In 1844, Sir George Williams founds the YMCA in London, providing urban youth with shelter, fellowship and fitness—a legacy that grew into a global movement and inspired a disco anthem. (Not American history but relevant to America)

In 1892, Chicago's elevated Loop train line (commonly known as the “L”) began operating, and it became one of the longest and busiest mass transit systems in the United States.

In 1912, Novarupta, a volcano on the Alaska peninsula, began a three-day eruption, sending ash nearly 19 miles (30 kilometers) high; it was the most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th century and the largest ever recorded in North America.

In 1918, Battle of Belleau Wood begins

In 1925, The Chrysler Corporation was incorporated, with Walter P. Chrysler as president.

In 1933, the first drive-in movie theater opened, in Camden, New Jersey.

In 1934, The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was established.

In 1939, the first Little League baseball game was played as Lundy Lumber defeated Lycoming Dairy 23-8 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

In 1944, Led by U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, an Allied armada of ships, planes, and landing craft and some 156,000 troops began the invasion of northern France from England this day in 1944—the famous “D-Day” of World War II.

In 1966, civil rights activist James Meredith was shot and wounded by a sniper on the second day of Meredith’s march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, which he began to raise awareness of ongoing racial oppression in the South.