1901 –
Bob Marshall (pictured), author, government official, and one of the founders of The
Wilderness Society, is born. Today he is considered largely responsible for the wilderness preservation movement in America.
1920 – The second
Palmer Raid takes place, with 6,000 suspected communists and anarchists arrested and held without trial across several U.S. cities.
1949 –
Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected
governor of the
Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico. All previous holders of the office were appointed, first by the King of Spain, then by the President of the United States.
2004 – Spirit (pictured), one of a pair of
Mars Exploration Rovers sent to survey the geology of
Mars, makes a successful landing. Its twin,
Opportunity rover would land on the opposite side of the planet three weeks later.
1893 – The
Washington National Cathedral (pictured) is chartered by Congress. Construction would not begin until 1907, and would not end until 1990.
1910 – The
Great White Fleet, a fleet of
United States Navy battleships that completed a circumnavigation of the globe between 1907 and 1909, passes through the
Suez Canal. It is the largest group of ships to pass through the canal up to that time.
1962 –
NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket. Better known as the
Saturn V, the rocket would serve as the
launch vehicle for every
Apollo Project mission, including those that landed on the Moon.
2003 –
Illinois Governor
George Ryan commutes the death sentences of 167 prisoners on Illinois' death row after it is discovered that
Chicago Police Department detective
Jon Burge elicited several confessions through the use of torture. The move effectively ends the use of the
death penalty in the state.
1907 –
Abraham Joshua Heschel, Warsaw-born American rabbi and one of the leading
Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century, is born.
1942 – As part of the mobilization for
World War II, President
Franklin Roosevelt reestablishes the
National War Labor Board, an arbitration tribunal chartered with solving labor disputes in order to prevent work stoppages in areas critical to the war effort.
1991 – An act of Congress authorizes the use of military force to drive the military of
Iraq out of
Kuwait. The intervention would become known as the
Gulf War.
1706 –
Benjamin Franklin (pictured), who would become a leading author and printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, diplomat, and
Founding Father of the United States, is born.
1899 – The United States takes possession of
Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
1911 –
Eugene B. Ely lands a fixed-wing aircraft on the deck of the
USS Pennsylvania using a
tailhook apparatus, the first successful landing of an aircraft on a ship (pictured).
1809 –
Edgar Allan Poe, a poet and author best known for his tales of
mystery and the
macabre, is born. Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the
detective fiction genre.
1981 – United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity, ending the
Iran Hostage Crisis.
1835 – In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States,
Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president
Andrew Jackson, but fails and is subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen as well as Jackson himself.