August 17 Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman is struck in the temple by a ball pitched by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees. He dies 12 hours later. It was the first and only death as the result of a pitched ball in Major League Baseball history. – 1920....
August 10 Missouri becomes the 24th state, the first state entirely west of the Mississippi River. Missouri was admitted within the Missouri Compromise in 1820 which admitted Maine as a northern state. – 1821. Construction on the St. Lawrence Seaway begins. Ultimately 22,000 workers spent five years building the 2,342-mile...
August 3 From the Spanish port of Palos, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sets sail in command of three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, on a journey to find a western sea route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. – 1492....
July 27 The House Judiciary Committee recommends that America’s 37th president, Richard M. Nixon, be impeached and removed from office. The impeachment proceedings resulted from a series of political scandals involving the Nixon administration that came to be collectively known as Watergate. – 1974. In Atlanta, Ga., the XXVI Summer...
July 20 New York City newsboys, many so poor that they were sleeping in the streets, begin a two-week strike. Several rallies drew more than 5,000 newsboys, complete with charismatic speeches by strike leader Kid Blink, who was blind in one eye. The boys had to pay publishers up front...
July 13 At Wembley Stadium in London, Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially open Live Aid, a worldwide rock concert organized to raise money for the relief of famine-stricken Africans. Continued at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia and at other arenas around the world, the 16-hour superconcert was linked...
July 6 In Hartford, Conn., a fire breaks out under the big top of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, to kill 167 individuals and injure 682. The cause of the fire was unknown, but it spread at incredible speed, racing up the canvas of the circus tent....
A trailblazing history-maker, in 1991, she was the first Black person elected to the Aurora City Council, and last week, she became the first sitting City Council member to die while in office. In between were 32 years of making more history, making significant moves, and making the lives of...
June 29 In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules by a vote of 5-4 that capital punishment, as it is employed on the state and federal level, is unconstitutional. The majority held that, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as “cruel...
June 22 U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill, an unprecedented act of legislation designed to compensate returning members of the Armed Services, known to thank G.I.s, for their efforts in World War II. – 1944. During World War II, the U.S. 10th Army overcomes the last major...
Mayor of Aurora, Richard Irvin, shared his thoughts after hearing the news of the death of Aurora alderwoman Scheketa Hart-Burns, at Aurora’s Juneteenth Flag-Raising Ceremony, Monday, June 19.“Scheketa was a mother, a sister. We called her the dean of the alderman.“Most importantly, she was a friend of so many.“She will...
More than a century and a half ago, the last enslaved Black people received the news that they were indeed free. Now, 158 years later, the youngest Black mayor in American history will join the first Black mayor of Aurora, Illinois, to honor the Juneteenth holiday. Mayor Jaylen Smith, 19,...
Aurora launched its Juneteenth series of celebrations by unveiling a unique, culturally custom-designed Juneteenth squad car. A large crowd, including Black police officers from Aurora and neighboring agencies, gathered today at the Aurora Police Department for the unprecedented occasion. “This is more than symbolic. It is a statement of fact...
June 15 Arkansas becomes the 25th state to join the United States. – 1836 More than 1,000 individuals taking a pleasure trip on New York City’s East River on the riverboat-style steamer General Slocum, are drowned, or burned to death, when a fire sweeps through the boat. It was one...
June 8 Some 35,000 members of the Machinists union begin what is to become a 43-day strike, the largest in airline history, against five carriers. The mechanics and other ground service workers wanted to share in the airlines’ substantial profits. – 1966. During the Six-Day War, Israeli aircraft and torpedo...
June 1 Approximately 12,500 longshoremen strike the Pacific Coast, from San Diego, Calif. to Bellingham, Wash.. – 1916. A Warsaw Poland underground newspaper, the Liberty Brigade, makes public the news of the gassing of tens of thousands of Jews at Chelmno, a death camp in Poland. – 1942. A coal...
May 25 With George Washington presiding, the Constitutional Convention formally convenes on this day in 1787. The convention faced a daunting task: The peaceful overthrow of the new American government as it had been defined by the Articles of Confederation. – 1787. Thousands of unemployed WWI veterans arrive in Washington,...
May 18 In what may have been baseball’s first labor strike, the Detroit Tigers refuse to play after team leader Ty Cobb is suspended: He went into the stands and beat a fan who had been heckling him. Cobb was reinstated and the Tigers went back to work after the...
May 11 Nationwide railway strike begins in Pullman, Ill. and 260,000 railroad workers ultimately joined the strike to protest wage cuts by the Pullman Palace Car Co.. – 1894. A massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States...
May 4 Haymarket massacre. A bomb is thrown when Chicago police start to break up a rally for strikers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. A riot erupts, and 11 police and strikers die, mostly from gunfire, and scores more are injured. – 1886. In Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen...
