1814 – British forces capture Washington, D.C. and destroy many landmarks (War of 1812)
1853 – 1st potato chips prepared by chef George Crum at Moon’s Lake House, near Saratoga Springs, New York (popular legend says he invented though earlier recipes exist)
1857 – The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in U.S. history.
1891 – Thomas Edison patents motion picture camera.
1893 – Tornado destroys coast of Savannah & Charleston, about 1,000 die.
1912 – District of Alaska becomes an organized incorporated territory of the United States.
1932 – 1st transcontinental non-stop flight by a woman, Amelia Earhart.
1936 – FDR gives FBI authority to pursuit fascists & communists.
1949 – North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) goes into effect.
1954 – US President Eisenhower signs Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party, at height of McCarthyism.
1959 – Hiram L Fong sworn in as 1st Chinese-American senator while Daniel K Inouye sworn in as 1st Japanese-American Representative (Both from Hawaii)
1973 – John Adams & his bass drum become a right-field fixture in Cleveland Stadium.
1989 – British brewery Bass buys Holiday Inn hotel chain.
1989 – Voyager 2 flies past Neptune.
1992 – 1st structural steel beams are erected at Gateway (Jacobs Field)
1992 – Hurricane Andrew hits South Florida; 35 die.
1995 – Microsoft debuts Windows 95.
2011 – Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple Inc., and is succeeded by Tim Cook, as a result of his illness.
2012 – A US jury in California finds that Samsung is guilty of patent infringement and awards over US$1 billion in damages to Apple.
2015 – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces that for the 1st time 1 billion people logged into Facebook.
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