1698 – Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.
1776 – New Jersey gives the right to vote to all adults who could show a net worth of 50 pounds.
1843 – An alligator falls from the sky during thunderstorm in Charleston, South Carolina.
1862 – President Lincoln signs act granting land to state agricultural colleges.
1881 – US President James Garfield shot by Charles J. Guiteau a disappointed office-seeker; Garfield dies 79 days later.
1901 – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid rob train of $40,000 at Wagner, Montana.
1921 – Warren G. Harding signs a joint congressional resolution declaring the official end of war with Germany.
1937 – Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappear flying over the Pacific Ocean en route to Howland Island. Noonan is declared dead the following year, and Earhart is declared the year after (1939)
1943 – Lieutenant Charles Hall becomes 1st African American pilot to shoot down a Nazi plane.
1962 – Sam Walton opens his first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas.
1964 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs Civil Right Act and Voting Rights Act into law.
1976 – Formal reunification of North and South Vietnam.
1976 – US Supreme Court rules death penalty not inherently cruel or unusual.
1979 – Susan B. Anthony dollar is issued, 1st US coin to honor a woman.
1986 – US Supreme Court upholds affirmative action in 2 rulings.
1991 – Donald Trump proposes to Marla Maples and gives her a 7.5 carat diamond ring.
1994 – US Air DC-9 crash in North Carolina, 37 killed.
2012 – GlaxoSmithKline settles the largest healthcare fraud case in history for US$3 Billion.
2015 – BP agrees to compensate US government & gulf states $18.7 billion for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
2017 – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie causes uproar by day at beach during his government shutdown of beaches.
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