On this date...

Cricket Invasion - South Dakota

In 1776, General William Howe and his brother, Admiral Richard Howe, sent a message to George Washington in New York offering a "pardon" to all who would lay down their arms and pledge allegiance to Great Britain. The letter was addressed to "George Washington, Esq.” The letter was delivered to Washington, but shortly afterwards it was returned unopened by Washington's aide, Joseph Reed who informed the messenger that there was no one with that title in the army.

In 1789, a mob advanced on the Bastille in Paris, demanding the arms and munitions stored there, but, when the guards resisted, the crowd captured the prison, an act that symbolized the end of the ancien régime. (While not American history the French revolution played a part in our own politics during this time)

In 1798, one of the most egregious breaches of the U.S. Constitution in history becomes federal law when Congress passes the Sedition Act, endangering liberty in the fragile new nation.

In 1879, Texas began selling state land at fifty cents an acre, bringing in $1.6 million. Half the proceeds went to reduce Texas' debt, while the other half was used to fill the coffers of the Permanent Education Fund. The law authorizing the sales was repealed four years later due to fraudulent land speculation. 

In 1881, American gunfighter Billy the Kid was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett.

In 1921, In a still-controversial decision, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, immigrant Italian anarchists, were found guilty of the murder of two men in Massachusetts.

In 1931, Governor Warren Green of South Dakota makes an urgent plea to President Herbert Hoover for assistance for his state's farmers, whose lives and livelihoods were being threatened by a catastrophic insect invasion. "Grasshoppers have utterly destroyed all crops in 11,000 square miles of South Dakota," the governor wrote in his emergency declaration. "Unless Federal aid is given, there will be intense suffering."

In 1946, at the dawn of the post-World War II baby boom, Dr. Benjamin Spock published The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. It would become a foundational work on the topic of parenting, transforming how generations of children were raised.

In 1953, The George Washington Carver National Monument is dedicated in Missouri. It becomes the first such site to honor a Black American.

In 1965, the American space probe Mariner 4 flew by Mars, sending back photographs of the planet.

In 1966, Eight student nurses were murdered by Richard Speck in a Chicago dormitory.

In 1968, American baseball great Hank Aaron hit his 500th career home run.

In 1969, Easy Rider was released in U.S. theatres, becoming a classic of the counterculture and propelling Jack Nicholson to stardom.

In 1970, the Young Lords, a predominantly Puerto Rican group of community activists in New York City, storm Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and barricade themselves inside. It was the beginning of what became a 12-hour-long occupation in protest of the hospital’s poor care conditions.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in New York City.

In 1999, Major league baseball umpires voted to resign and not work the final month of the season.

In 2003, Journalist Robert Novak identified Valerie Plame as a CIA operative in his newspaper column, citing two Bush administration officials.

In 2004, the Senate scuttled a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. (Forty-eight senators voted to advance the measure — 12 short of the 60 needed — and 50 voted to block it.)

In 2009, disgraced financier Bernard Madoff arrived at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina to begin serving a 150-year sentence for his massive Ponzi scheme. (Madoff died in prison in April 2021.)

In 2013, thousands of demonstrators across the country protested a Florida jury’s decision the day before to clear George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

In 2020, researchers reported that the first COVID-19 vaccine tested in the U.S. boosted people’s immune systems as scientists had hoped; the vaccine was developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc.