Category Archives: History

1770 – Poet William Wordsworth (The Prelude, Lyrical Ballads) was born in Cumberland, England.

1940 – Booker T. Washington became the first African-American to be pictured on a U.S. postage stamp.

1948 – The World Health Organization (WHO) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland.

1963 – Jack Nicklaus became, at the age of 23, the youngest golfer to win the Green Jacket at the Masters Tournament.

1963 – A new Yugoslav constitution proclaims Josip “Tito” Broz as president for life of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

1994 – Rwandan armed forces killed 10 Belgian peacekeeping officers in a prelude to a civil war that killed an estimated 1 million people over a 4-month period.

1776 – The Continental Congress opened all American ports to international trade with any part of the world that wasn’t under British rule.

1830 – Joseph Smith established the Mormon Church in Fayette Township, NY.

1882 – Rose Schneiderman, U.S. women’s rights activist and the only female member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Labor Advisory Board, was born in Sawin, Poland.

1895 – Writer Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray) was arrested for homosexual acts, after he lost a libel case against the Marquess of Queensbury.

1896 – The first modern Olympic Games began in Athens, Greece with 13 nations competing.

1909 – Commodore Robert Peary became the first man to reach the North.  Actually, Peary and Matthew H. Henson, Peary’s servant, were the first men to reach the North Pole.  Because Henson was a Black, hired man, his presence was not recognized until 1945 when he received a medal for outstanding service in the field of science from the U.S. government.

1916 – Charlie Chaplin signed a movie contract with the Mutual Film Corporation with an annual salary of $675,000, becoming the highest-paid film star in the world.

1917 – Two days after an 82 to 6 vote to declare war against Germany, the U.S. entered World War I.

1927 – William P. MacCracken, Jr. earned license number ‘1’ when the Department of Commerce issued the first aviator’s license.

1956 – Capitol Tower, the home of Capitol Records in Hollywood, CA, and the first circular office tower designed in America, was dedicated.

1957 – Trolley cars in New York City completed their final runs on this day.

1992 – War erupted in the former Yugoslavia, as Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence.

1614 – Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indian confederacy, married English tobacco planter John Rolfe in Jamestown, VA.

1792 – President George Washington exercised the first veto of a Congressional bill.  The bill would have divided seats in the House of Representatives and increased the number of seats for northern states. 

1856 – Author – educator – political leader Booker T. Washington was born in Franklin County, VA.

1869 – Daniel Bakeman, the last surviving soldier of the Revolutionary War, died at the age of 109.

1900 – Actor Spencer Tracy (Boys Town, Captains Courageous, The Old Man and the Sea, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner) was born in Milwaukee, WI.

1908 – Actress Bette Davis (Dangerous, Jezebel, All About Eve, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?) was born in Lowell, MA.

1920 – Author Arthur Hailey (Airport, Hotel, Wheels, The Moneychangers) was born in Bedfordshire, England.

1923 – Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, OH began the first regular production of balloon tires.

1933 – Dr. Evarts Graham performed the first operation to remove a lung on Dr. James Lee Gilmore, a 49-year-old obstetrician from Pittsburgh, PA, at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, MO.

1841 – President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia after serving only 32 days in office, the shortest tenure of any U.S. President.  Harrison was the first Chief Executive to die in office.

1887 – Susanna M. Salter became the first woman mayor in the U.S., elected by the people of Argonia, KS.  Salter won by a two-thirds majority, but didn’t even know she was in the running until she entered the voting booth.  The Women’s Christian Temperance Union had submitted her name.

1914 – The first known serialized moving picture, The Perils of Pauline, opened in New York City.

1949 – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established by 12 Western nations.

1960 – At the 32nd Annual Academy Awards, Ben-Hur took 11 Oscars, breaking the 20-year record of 10 held by Gone with the Wind.

1964 – The Beatles set a record by having all 5 of the top songs on Billboard magazine’s “Top 100” chart:

1) Can’t Buy Me Love
2) Twist and Shout
3) She Loves You
4) I Want to Hold Your Hand
5) Please Please Me

1968 – Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated while standing on a balcony outside the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN.

1981 – Henry Cisneros became the first elected Hispanic mayor of a major U.S. city, San Antonio.

1776 – Harvard College conferred the first honorary Doctor of Laws degree to George Washington.

1829 – James Carrington of Wallingford, CT patented the coffee mill.

1860 – The Pony Express debuted as horse and rider relay teams simultaneously left St. Joseph, MO, and Sacramento, CA.

1866 – Rudolph Eickemeyer and G. Osterheld of Yonkers, New York patented a blocking and shaping machine for hats.

1882 – Jesse James was shot to death by Robert Ford, a member of his own gang.

1936 – Bruno Hauptmann, convicted in the 1932 kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s baby, was executed.

1996 – Theodore Kaczynksi, aka the Unabomber, was arrested at his cabin near Lincoln, MT.

1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León landed on the mainland North America, near what is now St. Augustine, FL, which would become the first permanent European settlement in the future United States.

1805 – Author Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odensk, Denmark.

1792 – The U.S. Congress authorized the first U.S. mint in Philadelphia, PA.

1840 – Author Emile Zola was born in Paris, France.

1872 – G.B. Brayton of Boston, MA, received a patent for the gas-powered engine.

1875 – Walter Chrysler, founder of the Chrysler Corporation, was born in Wamego, KS.

1889 – Charles Hall patented aluminum on this day.

1896 – Madison Square Garden in New York City hosted the season premiere of the Barnum and Bailey Circus and featured a Duryea horseless carriage.

1902 – Esther Morris, the first woman judge elected in the United States, died in Cheyenne, WY.

1902 – The first motion picture theatre opened in Los Angeles.  The Electric Theatre charged a dime to see an hour’s worth of entertainment.

1917 – President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany.

1917 – Jeanette Pickering Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, took her seat as a representative of Montana.

1956 – Two very successful daytime dramas, The Edge of Night and As the World Turns, premiered on CBS-TV.

1969 – The Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association signed Lew Alcindor for a reported $1,400,000 five-year contract.  Alcindor soon changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabar, and his team changed their name to the Los Angeles Lakers.

1972 – Actor Burt Reynolds appeared nude in Cosmopolitan magazine.  That issue of Cosmo became an instant collector’s item and an additional 700,000 copies had to be printed.

1982 – Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in an ill-fated attempt to reclaim them from Great Britain.  The brief war cost England 256 lives and Argentina 750 lives.