1776 – Formal signing of the Declaration of Independence by 50 people (date most accepted by modern historians)
1791 – Samuel Briggs and his son granted a patent for a nail-making machine.
1865 – Lewis Carroll published “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
1909 – Army Air Corps formed as Army takes first delivery from Wright Brothers.
1921 – After three hours of deliberation a Chicago jury acquits eight Chicago White Sox players accused in Black Sox scandal. The next day the players are banned for life from organized baseball.
1934 – First airplane train as an airplane tows three mail gliders behind it.
1939 – Hatch Act prohibits political activity by federal workers.
1943 – Lt. John F. Kennedy’s PT boat 109 sinks at the Solomon Islands.
1952 – 17-year-old future world boxing champion Floyd Patterson wins the gold medal in the middleweight division at the Helsinki Olympic Games with a firs round knockout of Romanian Vasile Tita.
1959 – PGA Championship men’s golf, Minneapolis Golf Club: Bob Rosburg wins by 1 stroke over Jerry Barber and Doug Sanders.
1965 – Morley Safer sends first report from Vietnam indicating the United States is losing the war.
1975 – A state-record 104 degrees at Providence, Rhode Island.
1985 – Delta Lockheed L-1011 crashes at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, killing 137 people.
1989 – NASA confirmed Voyager 2’s discovery of three more moons of Neptune designated temporarily 1989 N2, 1989 N3 and 1989 N24.
1992 – American Jackie Joyner-Kersee becomes the first athlete to win consecutive gold medals in the grueling heptathlon with a 199 point win over the Soviet Union’s Irine Belova at the Barcelona Olympics.
1994 – Congressional hearings begin on Whitewater scandal involving Bill and Hillary Clinton.
2005 – The largest trade in NBA history is completed as five teams combine to swap 13 players with the deal bringing Antoine Walker and Jason Williams to Miami, which leads to the Heat’s first championship.
2012 – American swimmer Michael Phelps wins an unprecedented third consecutive gold medal in the 200-meter individual medley in 1:54.27 at the London Olympics.
2013 – Carl Ican sues computer giant Dell in an attempt to derail a buyout bid by CEO Michael Dell.
2016 – Apple becomes the first American publicly listed company to reach $1 billion in value.
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