1622 – John Mason and Ferdinando Gorges receive a land patent of the Province of Maine.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: word of the United States Declaration of Independence reaches London.
1821 – Missouri admitted as 24th US state.
1833 – Chicago incorporates as a village of about 200.
1846 – US Act of Congress passes establishing the Smithsonian Institution, now world’s largest museum and research complex.
1869 – O.B. Brown patents moving picture projecter.
1889 – Dan Ryland patents screw cap.
1921 – FDR stricken with polio at summer home on Canadian Island of Campobello.
1949 – US National Military Establishment renamed Department of Defense.
1960 – Discoverer 13 launched into orbit; returned 1st object from space.
1966 – 1st lunar orbiter launched by US.
1971 – Twins’ Harmon Killebrew is 10th to amass 500 HRs, & adds his 51st.
1977 – Postal employee David Berkowitz arrested in Yonkers, NY, accused of being “Son of Sam” 44 caliber killer.
1981 – Richard Nixon Museum in San Clemente closes.
1994 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg sworn in as US Supreme Court Justice.
1996 – Bob Dole picks Jack Kemp as his Republican VP running mate.
2006 – Scotland Yard disrupts major terrorist plot to destroy aircraft traveling from United Kingdom to the United States. All toiletries are banned from commercial aircraft.
2017 – US President Donald Trump declares opioid addiction a national emergency.
2017 – 100 year-old fruit cake by Huntley & Palmer deemed “almost eatable” after being discovered in hut used by Captain Scott’s expedition in Antarctica.