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)
1891 – Thomas Edison patents motion picture camera.
1893 – Tornado destroys coast of Savannah & Charleston, about 1,000 die.
1912 – NYC ticker tape parade for Jim Thorpe & victorious US Olympians.
1932 – 1st transcontinental non-stop flight by a woman, Amelia Earhart.
1936 – FDR gives the FBI the authority to pursue fascists and communists.
1938 – Virgil Trucks strikes out his 418th batter, highest season total in organized ball for Andalusia in an Alabama-Florida league game.
1942 – Sea battle off Eastern Solomon Islands between United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy.
1954 – US President Eisenhower signs Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party, at height of McCarthyism.
1956 – 1st non-stop transcontinental helicopter flight arrived in Washington, D.C.
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)
1969 – Peru nationalizes US oil interest.
1970 – Bomb kills 1 at University of Wisconsin’s Army Math Research Center in Madison.
1979 – Cars play concert in NY Central Park.
1989 – British brewery Bass buys Holiday Inn hotel chain.
1992 – Hurricane Andrew hits South Florida, making landfall at Elliot Key and later Homestead; 44 die and $25 billion in damage is recorded.
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.
2015 – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces that for the first time 1 billion people logged into Facebook.
