1776 – In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, which declared the young nation’s complete independence from Great Britain.
1826 – Former Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died within 5 hours of each other.
Jefferson
Adams
1855 – The first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was published in Brooklyn, NY.
1872 – Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States, was born in Plymouth Notch, VT.
1881 – The Tuskegee Institute opened in Tuskegee, AL, the site for Booker T. Washington’s institution for academic and vocational training.
1888 – The first rodeo in America was held in Prescott, AZ.
1895 – America the Beautiful, the famous song often touted as the true U.S. national anthem was published as a poem written by Katharine Lee Bates, a Wellesley College professor, in the Congregationalist, a church newspaper.
1939 – Lou Gehrig announced his retirement from baseball in a ceremony at Yankee Stadium in New York City.
1970 – Casey Kasem hosted radio’s American Top 40 for the first time.
1997 – The Mars Pathfinder spacecraft, launched by NASA in December 1996, entered the Martian atmosphere.
