1814 – British forces destroy Library of Congress, containing 3,000 books (War of 1812)
1829 – President Jackson makes an offer to buy Texas, but Mexican government refuses.
1864 – Combination rail & ferry service available from San Francisco to Alameda.
1910 – Yellow Cab is founded.
1916 – US Department of Interior forms National Park Service.
1921 – The first skirmishes of the Battle of Blair Mountain, a civil uprising in Logan County, West Virginia.
1932 – Amelia Earhart completes transcontinental flight.
1936 – Odorless cornstarch is patented in the US by Ralph W. Kerr.
1943 – US forces overrun New Georgia in Solomon Islands during WW II.
1952 – Puerto Rico becomes a US commonwealth.
1956 – To make room for Enos Slaughter, NY Yanks release Phil Rizzuto.
1982 – US & USSR sign $10 billion grain pact.
1987 – Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches record 2722.42.
1989 – After 12-year, 4-billion-mile journey, Voyager 2 flies over cloud tops of Neptune & its moon Triton, sending back photographs of swamps.
1991 – Carl Lewis runs 100m in 9.86 seconds.
1991 – Linux was born when Linus Torvalds sent off the email announcing his project to create a new operating system.
2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft, becomes the 1st spacecraft to enter interstellar space (launched in 1977)
2017 – President Donald Trump grants presidential pardon to Joe Arpaio, who has been convicted of contempt of court for racial profiling.
2017 – Category 4 Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Texas northeast of Corpus Christi with 130 mph winds.
