Category Archives: History

1788 – South Carolina, originally named in honor of Charles I of England, became the eighth state of the union.

1810 – Author Margaret Fuller, America’s first true feminist, was born in Cambridge, MA.

1846 – Arabella Mansfield, the first woman admitted into the legal profession in the U.S., was born in Burlington, IA.

1879 – Iowa State College in Ames, IA, was established as the first veterinary school in the U.S.

1911 – The New York Public Library, the largest marble structure ever built in the U.S., was dedicated in New York City.

1934 – Police from Louisiana and Texas killed outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow near Sailes, LA.

1949 – Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin lifted the Berlin Blockade.

1960 – Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced that Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann had been captured in Argentina.

1455 – The Yorkists defeated King Henry VI’s Lancastrian forces at St. Albans, north of London, in the first battle of the War of the Roses.

1761 – The first life insurance policy was issued in the United States by the Corporation for the Relief of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers and of the Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers.

1813 – Composer Wilhelm Richard Wagner (Tristan, Isolde, Lohengrin) was bornin Leipzig, Germany.

1819 – The steamship Savannah became the first to cross the Atlantic, sailing from Savannah, Georgia to Liverpool, England.  This day is now celebrated in the United States as National Maritime Day.

1843 – A wagon train of 1,000 settlers and 1,000 heads of cattle set off on the “Oregon Trail” from Independence, MO, in what became known as the “Great Migration.”

1849 – Abraham Lincoln received patent number 6469 for his floating dry dock.

1859 – Author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes series) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.

1868 – The masked Reno Gang pulled off the “great train robbery” at Marshfield, IN, hauling away $98,000.

1900 – Edwin S. Votey of Detroit, MI patented his pianola: a pneumatic piano player, which could be attached to any piano.

1907 – Actor Laurence Olivier (War Requiem, The Boys from Brazil, Brideshead Revisited, Carrie, The Jazz Singer, Peter the Great, Richard III, Spartacus) was born in Surrey, England.

1960 – A 9.5-magnitude earthquake, the largest ever recorded, struck coastal Chile, killing 1,655 people and leaving more than 2,000,000 homeless.  It also generated a massive series of tsunamis across the Pacific region that killed more than 2,000 more people.

1967 – What was to become the Public Broadcasting System’s longest-running children’s program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, debuted.

1972 – President Richard M. Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit Moscow.

1992 – After 3 decades, Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show for the last time.  Comedian Jay Leno replaced him.

1471 – Artist Albrecht Durer (Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand, Adoration of the Magi, Young Hare) was born in Nuremberg, Germany.

1688 – Poet Alexander Pope (Pastorals, An Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, The Art of Sinking in Poetry) was born in London.

1844 – Artist Henri Rousseau (The Sleeping Gypsy) was born in Laval, France.

1881 – Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons founded the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C.

1910 – French author Collette (Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette) began to publish her novel The Vagabond in serial form.

1922 – Rollin Kirby’s editorial cartoon, On the Road to Moscow, became the first to win a Pulitzer Prize.

1960 – A 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck Valdivia, Chile, killing 5,000 and leaving some 2 million homeless.

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama became the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean when he arrived at Calicut.

1506 – Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain.

1768 – Dolly Madison, wife of President James Madison, was born in Guilford County, North Carolina.

1799 – Novelist Honoré de Balzac was born in Tours, France.

1862 – The U.S. Congress passed the Homestead Act, allowing any adult over the age of 21 to claim 160 acres of land from public domain.

1873 – San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss received a patent for blue jeans.

1875 – The International Bureau of Weights and Measures was established.

1908 – Actor Jimmy Stewart was born in Indiana, PA.

1927 – Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in New York aboard the small airplane Spirit of St. Louis, and arrived in Paris, France, thirty-one and a half hours later.

1985 – The Dow Jones industrial average broke the 1300 mark for the first time, gaining 19.54 points to close at 1304.88.

1995 – Under pressure from the Secret Service, President Bill Clinton authorized closure of a 2-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to all non-pedestrian traffic.

1727 – Artist Thomas Gainsborough (The Blue Boy, The Watering Place) was born in Suffolk, England.

1804 – One year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition left St. Louis, MO, on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.

1878 – The trademarked name Vaseline, for a brand of petroleum jelly, was registered by Robert A. Chesebrough.

1897 – A statue of George Washington was unveiled in Philadelphia, PA.

1904 – The Olympic Games opened in St. Louis, MO, the first time the games were held in the United States.

1913 – John D. Rockefeller made the largest gift of money at the time by establishing the Rockefeller Foundation for $100,000,000.  The foundation promotes “the well-being of mankind throughout the world.”

1948 – In Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel.

1955 – The Soviet Union and 7 of its European satellites signed a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states.

1973 – The U.S. successfully launched Skylab, the first American space station.

1607 – Some 100 English colonists arrived on the west bank of what is now the James River in present-day Virginia and founded Jamestown.

1821 – Samuel Rust of New York City patented the first practical printing press built in the U.S.

1842 – Opera composer Arthur Sullivan (H.M.S. Pinafore, The Mikado, Pirates of Penzance) was born in London.

1846 – President James K. Polk declared war on México in a dispute over Texas.

1898 – Thomas Edison sued the American Mutoscope Company, claiming they infringed on his patent for the Kinetograph movie camera.

1907 – Writer Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca, The Loving Spirit) was born in London.

1949 – The first gas turbine to pump natural gas was installed in Wilmar, AR.

1958 – Vice-President Richard Nixon was attacked in Caracas, Venezuela, during his Latin America goodwill trip, nearly overturning the car in which he was riding.  The mob was angry about U.S. Cold War policy.

1981 – Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded in St. Peter’s Square in Rome by Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca.

1812 – Poet and artist Edward Lear was born in Highgate, England.

1820 – Health activist and nurse Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy.

1828 – Writer and artist Dante Rossetti was born in London.

1831 – The first indicted bank robber in the U.S., Edward Smith, was sentenced to five years hard labor on the rock pile at Sing Sing Prison.

1847 – Mormon pioneer William Clayton invented the odometer.

1900 – Captain Mildred McAfee, 1^st Director of the U.S. Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service; Distinguished Service Medal, 1945, was born in Parkville, MO.

1903 – While visiting San Francisco, President Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to be photographed using moving picture film.

1907 – Actress Katharine Hepburn was born in Hartford, CT.

1914 – Journalist and TV anchorman Howard K. Smith was born in Ferriday, LA.

1932 – The body of Charles Lindbergh’s baby was found in a wooded area near the family home in Hopewell, NJ.

1937 – Prince George VI was crowned king of England after his older brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated the throne to marry an American divorcee.

1950 – The American Bowling Congress abolished its White males-only membership restriction after 34 years.

1858 – Minnesota entered the United States as the 32^nd state.

1888 – Composer Irving Berlin was born in Mogilyov, Russia.

1894 – Choreographer Martha Graham was born in Allegheny County, PA.

1896 – Writer Mari Sandoz was born in Sheridan County, NE.

1904 – Surreal artist Salvador Dalí was born in Figueras, Spain.

1910 – Glacier National Park in Montana was created by an act of Congress.

1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded in Los Angeles.

1928 – WGY-TV in Schenectady, NY, began the first schedule of regular TV programs, offering programming to its upstate New York audience three times a week using the mechanical scanning method.

1947 – B.F. Goodrich announced the development of the tubeless tire.

1997 – IBM’s super computer Deep Blue made history by defeating Gary Kasparov at chess.

1869 – The Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads joined in Promontory, UT, making transcontinental railroad travel possible in the United States for the first time.

1872 – Victoria Claflin Woodhull became the first woman nominated to be President of the United States, when she was chosen for the ballot by the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York City.

1877 – President Rutherford B. Hayes had the White House’s first telephone installed in the mansion’s telegraph room.

1924 – J. Edgar Hoover began his 48-year career with the FBI.

1940 – Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain.

1960 – The U.S.S. Triton submarine became the first submerged vessel to circumnavigate the globe, as it arrived in Groton, CT.

1969 – The National and American Football Leagues announced plans to merge for the 1970 – 71 season.  Two conferences of 13 teams each were formed.

1986 – Navy Lt. Commander Donnie Cochran became the first Black pilot to fly with the celebrated Blue Angels precision aerial demonstration team.

1994 – Nelson Mandela was sworn in as the first Black president of South Africa.

1712 – The Carolina Colony was officially divided into two entities: North and South.

1800 – Abolitionist John Brown was born in Torrington, CT.

1914 – President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation officially establishing Mother’s Day.

1950 – L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, which ultimately led to the development of a belief system called Scientology.

1951 – The United States conducted its first thermonuclear experiment by detonating a 225-kiloton device on Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific.

1960 – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the world’s first commercially produced birth control pill, Enovid-10.

1974 – The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opened impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.