Tag: History

July 9 Two trains collide outside of Nashville, Tenn. and kill 101 and injure more than 100. Despite the high death toll, the story was mainly ignored by the national press most likely because the vast majority of the casualties were African Americans. – 1918. July 10 A powerful explosion

July 2 Africans on the Cuban schooner Amistad rise up against their captors, kill two crew members, and seize control of the ship, which had been transporting them to a life of slavery on a sugar plantation in Puerto Principe, Cuba. – 1839. U.S. president James A. Garfield, who had

June 25 Native American forces, led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River. – 1876. Fair Labor Standards Act passes Congress which bans child labor and sets the 40-hour

June 18 The War of 1812 begins in response to the British economic blockade of France, the induction of American seamen into the British Royal Navy against their will, and the British support of hostile Indian tribes along the Great Lakes frontier. – 1812. At Waterloo in Belgium, Napoleon Bonaparte

June 11 The Continental Congress selects Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert R. Livingston of New York to draft a declaration of independence. – 1776. Five days after the D-Day landing, the five Allied landing groups, made up

June 4 The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to guarantee women the right to vote, is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. – 1919. Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, commander of the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, launches a raid on Midway Island with almost

May 28 A 22-year-old lieutenant colonel of the Virginia militia named George Washington successfully defeats a party of French and Indian scouts in southwest Pennsylvania when Virginia attempts to lay claim to the territory for its settlers. The action snowballed into the Seven Years’ War and began the military career

May 21 In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters. – 1881. Connecticut becomes the first state to pass a law regulating motor vehicles by limiting their speed to

May 14 One year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark Expedition leaves St. Louis, Mo., on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. – 1804. In Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaims

May 7 Martinique’s Mount Pele, near the city of Saint Pierre, begins the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th Century. The city of Saint Pierre was buried within minutes and virtually everyone died instantly. – 1902. The German High Command, in the person of General Alfred Jodl, signs the unconditional

April 30 Representatives of the United States and Napoleonic France conclude negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, a massive land sale that doubles the size of the young American republic. What was known as Louisiana Territory comprised most of modern-day United States between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, with the

April 23 Brian Boru, the high king of Ireland, is assassinated by a group of retreating Norsemen shortly after his Irish forces defeat them. – 1014. Historians believe legendary English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare is born in Stratford-on-Avon on this day in 1564, the same day he died in

April 16 Employers lock out 25,000 New York City garment workers in a dispute over hiring practices. The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union calls a general strike; after 14 weeks, 60,000 strikers win union recognition and the contractual right to strike. – 1916. Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik

April 9 At Appomattox, Va., Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. Forced to abandon the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., blocked from joining the surviving Confederate force in North Carolina, and harassed constantly by Union

April 2 The U.S. Supreme Court declares unconstitutional a 1918 Washington, D.C. law establishing a minimum wage for women. – 1923. The world’s first anthrax epidemic begins in Ekaterinburg, Russia, now Sverdlosk. By the time it ended six weeks later, 62 individuals were dead. Another 32 survived serious illness. The

March 26 In a ceremony at the White House, Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin sign an historic peace agreement to end three decades of hostilities between Egypt and Israel. – 1979. Police enter a mansion in San Diego, Calif., and discover 39 victims of a

March 19 The United States, along with coalition forces primarily from the United Kingdom, initiates war on Iraq. Just after explosions began to rock Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, U.S. president George W. Bush announces in a televised address, “At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of

March 12 In a dramatic speech to a joint session of Congress, U.S. president Harry S Truman asks for U.S. assistance for Greece and Turkey to forestall communist domination of the two nations. Some historians often have cited Truman’s address, which came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, as