On this date...

In 1774, Rhode Island became the first colony to prohibit the importation of slaves. Rhode Island had been one of the largest importers of slaves.

In 1777, 19-year-old French aristocrat, Marie-Joseph Paul Roch Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arrives in South Carolina with the intent to serve as General George Washington’s second-in-command.

In 1805, Having hurried ahead of the main body of the expedition, Meriwether Lewis and four men arrive at the Great Falls of the Missouri River, confirming that the explorers are headed in the right direction.

In 1807, President Thomas Jefferson receives a subpoena to testify in the treason trial of his former vice president, Aaron Burr, on June 13, 1807. In the subpoena, Burr asked Jefferson to produce documents that might exonerate him.

In 1913, Hudson Stuck and Harry Karstens led a mountaineering party to the south peak, the true summit of Mount McKinley, becoming the first people to ascend North America's highest peak (6,194 meters [20,320 feet]).

In 1942, during World War II, a four-man Nazi sabotage team arrived by submarine at Long Island, New York, three days before a second four-man team landed in Florida. (All eight men were arrested within weeks, after two members of the first group defected.)

In 1942, some six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Office of War Information (OWI) was created.

In 1966, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ernesto Miranda in Miranda v. Arizona, affirming that constitutional guarantees against self-incrimination include restrictions on police interrogation of an arrested suspect.

In 1967, Thurgood Marshall was nominated as justice to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Lyndon B. Johnson; he became the Court's first African American member.

In 1971, The New York Times began publishing the “Pentagon Papers”—a series of articles based on a study of the U.S. role in Indochina from World War II until May 1968; the papers added to the growing opposition to the Vietnam War.

In 1983, After more than a decade in space, Pioneer 10, the world’s first outer-planetary probe, leaves the outer limits of the known solar system by crossing the orbit of Neptune, the system's then farthest planet. The next day, it radioed back its first scientific data on interstellar space.

In 1996, the 81-day-old Freemen standoff ended as the 16 remaining members of the anti-government group left their Montana ranch and surrendered to the FBI.

In 2023, Donald Trump became the first former U.S. president to be charged with federal crimes as he was arraigned in a Miami courtroom; he pleaded not guilty to 37 felony charges that related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.