1797 – US frigate Constitution (Old Ironsides) launched in Boston.
1814 – “Star Spangled Banner” published as a song, lyrics by Francis Scott Key, tune by John Stafford Smith.
1859 – George Simpson patents electric range.
1870 – Mayor William Tweed accused of robbing NY treasury.
1873 – Panic sweeps NY Stock Exchange (railroad bond default/bank failure) NY shut banks for 10 days due to a bank scandal.
1891 – The first gasoline-powered car debuts in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States.
1904 – Orville & Wilbur Wright fly a circle in their Flyer II.
1922 – Rogers Hornsby ends hitting streak of 33 games.
1945 – German rocket engineers begin work in US.
1954 – 1st FORTRAN computer program run.
1961 – After 84 1/3 innings Bill Fischer gives up a base on balls.
1961 – James Meredith refused enrollment to the segregated University of Mississippi.
1963 – JFK proposes a joint US-Soviet voyage to the moon.
1976 – Playboy releases Jimmy Carter’s interview that he lusts for women.
1979 – Lee Iacocca is elected president of the Chrysler Corporation.
1983 – Cryptographic Communications System & Method (RSA) patented.
1989 – USAir overshoots runway at LaGuardia Airport in NYC, 2 people die.
2001 – In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a “war on terror”.
2011 – The United States ends its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.
2015 – Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, confirms raising the price of toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim by 5,000%.
2017 – US Federal Reserve says it will start to unwind its bond portfolio employed in wake of the financial crisis.