1853 – Central Park in New York created when New York State Legislature puts aside more than 750 acres of land on Manhattan Island.
1865 – In market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots and kills Davis Tutt in what is regarded as the first true western showdown.
1873 – Jesse James and James Younger gang’s 1st train robbery (Adair, Iowa)
1915 – Woodrow Wilson sends the third Lusitania note, warning Germany that future infringement of American rights will be deemed ‘deliberately unfriendly’
1919 – Dirigible crashes through bank skylight killing 13 in Chicago, Illinois.
1925 – John T. Scopes found guilty of teaching evolution in the “Scopes monkey trial”, Dayton, Tennessee, fined $100 & costs.
1930 – US Veterans Administration forms.
1942 – 8 die as coal waste heap slides in river valley near Oakwood, Va.
1944 – US forces land on Guam during its recapture from the Japanese (Operation Forager)
1949 – US Senate ratifies North Atlantic Treaty by a vote of 82-13 (NATO)
1959 – 1st nuclear powered merchant ship, NS Savannah, named, Camden, NJ.
1966 – Gemini X returns to Earth.
1969 – Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to step on the Moon at 2:56:15 AM (GMT)
1974 – US House Judiciary approves two Articles of Impeachment against President Richard Nixon.
1983 – US announces Lebanon freed American hostage David Dodge.
1997 – The fully restored USS Constitution (aka “Old Ironsides”) celebrates her 200th birthday, setting sail for the first time in 116 years.
2002 – Telecom giant WorldCom files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the then largest such filing in United States history.
2011 – NASA’s Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135.
2017 – White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigns after opposing appointment of Anthony Scaramucci.