1732 | Civil Rights: St. Joesph’s, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania open. Because Pennsylvania was founded on principles of religious tolerance, St. Joseph’s was the only place in the English-speaking world at this time where public Catholic Mass was legally celebrated.
1803 | Admiral Esek Hopkins died.
1813 | Founder Robert Livingston died.
1829 | Entrepreneur Levi Strauss was born.
1832 | Historian John George Nicolay was born.
1839 | Sybil Ludington, War for Independence heroine, died. Known as the “Female Paul Revere,” she rode 40 miles (twice as far as Revere) to warn militia forces of a British attack on Danbury, Connecticut, at age 16.
1846 | Explorer and entertainer William “Buffalo Bill” Cody was born.
1852 | Entrepreneur and physician John Harvey Kellogg was born in Tyrone, Michigan.
1862 | Civil War: The Battle of Woodburn, Kentucky.
1863 | POTUS: Republican President Lincoln signed the National Currency Act, creating a single U.S. currency.
1866 | Entrepreneur and chemist Herbert Henry Dow was born.
1869 | 15th Amendment submitted to the states for ratification. It prohibited the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
1870 | Civil Rights: Wyatt Outlaw was lynched by the KKK in North Carolina.
1871 | Painter Sophia Hawthorne died.
1882 | Admiral Husband Kimmel was born.
1903 | Entrepreneur Richard Jordan Gatling died.
1907 | Congress: Raised its annual salary to $7,500.
1914 | The New York Museum of Science & Industry was formed.
1916 | Actor Jackie Gleason was born.
1917 | The Original Dixieland “Jass Band” recorded “Livery Stable Blues,” the first jazz record released, which became a surprise hit and launched the “Jazz Age.”
1919 | Congress: Authorized the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. After decades of being a Forest Reserve and then a National Monument, it became the nation’s 15th National Park, protecting over 1.2 million acres.
1920 | Actor Tony Randall was born.
1928 | Entertainer Fats Domino was born.
1929 | POTUS: Republican President Coolidge established Grand Teton National Park, the original park protected the Teton Range and six glacial lakes.
1930 | First Green and Red traffic signals operated in New York City, New York.
1931 | Journalist Robert Novak was born.
1932 | Musician Johnny Cash was born.
1940 | The U.S. Air Defense Command was established.
1944 | Civil Rights: The first female Navy captain, Sue Dauser, was appointed head of the Nursing Corps.
1945 | Musician Mitch Ryder was born in Hamtramck, Michigan.
1945 | WWII: U.S. forces begin bombing Berlin, Germany.
1946 | Civil Rights: Columbia, Tennessee race riots.
1949 | Author Elizabeth George was born.
1949 | The first nonstop transworld flight was started by the USAF. The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II took off from Carswell AFB. It completed the flight in 94 hours, refueling four times in the air.
1965 | Civil Rights: Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed in Alabama.
1972 | Buffalo Creek Flood occurred. One of the deadliest engineering failures in U.S. history occurred when a coal slurry dam in West Virginia burst, killing 125 people and leaving thousands homeless.
1975 | TV: The first televised kidney transplant surgery on the Today Show.
1987 | Congress: Probes into the “Iran-Contra” affair began.
1991 | Gulf War: The Battle of 73 Easting. Described as “the last great tank battle of the 20th century,” U.S. and British armored forces decimated the Iraqi Guard.
1993 | War on Terror: A rental truck packed with explosives was detonated in the North Tower’s underground garage. The attack killed six people and injured over 1,000.
1993 | Actress Taylor Dooley was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.
1994 | Entrepreneur and inventor Avery Fischer died.
2004 | POTUS: Republican President Bush lifted a travel ban on Libya.
2017 | Entertainer and judge Joseph Waper died.