On this date...

King Louis

In 1777, King Louis XVI of France entered into a secret agreement to provide ammunition and equipment to the Americans.

In 1777, Admiral Sir Richard Howe and his brother, General Sir William Howe sets sail from New York City with approximately 15,000 men. General Howe will embark on a campaign to take Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress.

In 1829, William Austin Burt of Mount Vernon, Mich., received a patent for his typographer, a forerunner of the typewriter.

In 1903, Ford Motor Company sold its first automobile, a Ford Model A; five years later it introduced the hugely influential Model T.

In 1904, according to some accounts, Charles E. Menches conceived the idea of filling a pastry cone with two scoops of ice cream and thereby invented the ice cream cone. He is one of several claimants to that honor: Ernest Hamwi, Abe Doumar, Albert and Nick Kabbaz, Arnold Fornachou, and David Avayou all have been touted as the inventor(s) of the first edible cone. Interestingly, these individuals have in common the fact that they all made or sold confections at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, known as the St. Louis World’s Fair. It is from the time of the Fair that the edible “cornucopia,” a cone made from a rolled waffle, vaulted into popularity in the United States.

In 1918, Della Sorenson kills the first of her seven victims in rural Nebraska by poisoning her sister-in-law’s infant daughter, Viola Cooper. Over the next seven years, friends, relatives, and acquaintances of Sorenson died under mysterious circumstances before anyone finally realized that it had to be more than a coincidence.

In 1923, John Herbert Dillinger joins the Navy in order to avoid charges of auto theft in Indiana, marking the beginning of America’s most notorious criminal’s downfall.

In 1967, A riot began in Detroit as African Americans and the city's police department were involved in violent confrontations following a police raid on an illegal drinking club; the unrest, which lasted for five days, is considered one of the catalysts of the militant Black Power movement.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over his secret audio recordings to the Senate Watergate Committee and Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, citing executive privilege.

In 1984, 21-year-old Vanessa Williams gives up her Miss America title, the first resignation in the pageant’s history, after Penthouse magazine announces plans to publish nude photos of the beauty queen in its September issue.

In 1996, at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, the U.S. women’s gymnastics team wins its first-ever team gold.

In 1999, With the launch of NASA's orbiter Columbia, U.S. astronaut Eileen Collins became the first woman to command a space shuttle mission.

In 1999, The music festival Woodstock ’99 opens. The festival—timed to the 30th anniversary of the original Woodstock—attempts to bring the spirit of peace, music, and love to a new generation; instead it devolves into three days of scorching heat, raw sewage, misogyny and greed in upstate New York.

In 2003, Massachusetts' attorney general issued a report saying clergy members and others in the Boston Archdiocese probably sexually abused more than 1,000 people over six decades.

In 2009, Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox pitched the 18th perfect game in major league history, a 5-0 win over Tampa Bay.

In 2021, The Cleveland Indians announce that the team will change its name to the Cleveland Guardians at the end of the season, out of respect for Native Americans. It had retired its grinning "Chief Wahoo" logo in 2018.