1724 – Philosopher Immanuel Kent was born in Königsberg, Prussia.
1864 – The U.S. Congress mandated that all coins minted as U.S. currency bear the inscription “In God We Trust.”
1870 – Vladimir Lenin, leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution, was born in Simbirsk, Russia.
1873 – Author Ellen Glasgow (The Descendants, Barren Ground) was born in Richmond, VA.
1889 – At exactly noon, the sound of a gunshot signaled thousands of settlers to rush into the Oklahoma Territory to claim pieces of cheap land. The U.S. Federal government had purchased almost two million acres of land in Central Oklahoma from the Crete and Seminole Indians and opened it to the settlers to claim their stakes.
1904 – J. Robert Oppenheimer, who designed and built the first atomic bomb, was born in New York City.
1931 – James G. Ray landed a contraption known as the autogyro on the lawn of the White House.
1970 – The first Earth Day was observed in the U.S.
Chief Writing Wolf 