February 1st
Today in America's Present PAst
1788 | Briggs & Longstreet receives the first patent for a steamboat.
1790 | SCOTUS: The Supreme Court convenes for the first time.
1801 | Painter Thomas Cole was born.
1807 | General William Bowen Campbell was born.
1810 | Civil Rights: The first African-American-owned insurance company (The African Insurance Co.) opens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1810 | Abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond was born.
1819 | General Henry Lawrence Eustis was born.
1829 | General John Potts Slough was born.
1838 | The English-language version of Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville is published.
1860 | Civil Rights: Congress’ session is opened by a prayer a Rabbi offers for the first time.
1861 | Civil War: Texas succeeds from the Union.
1862 | Civil Rights: Charles Sumner and Ralph Waldo Emerson met with Republican President Lincoln to argue the moral cause of ending slavery.
1864 | Civil War: The Yazoo River, Mississippi naval battle occurred.
1865 | Civil Rights: The first African-American lawyer to argue at the Supreme Court, JS Rock, was admitted to the bar.
1865 | Civil Rights: Republican President Abraham Lincoln signs the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
1871 | Civil Rights: The first African American to speak on the floor of the U.S. House, Jefferson Long, does so, opposing leniency to Confederate soldiers.
1878 | Civil Rights: Hattie Wyatt Caraway, the first elected woman to the U.S. Senate, was born.
1895 | Movie director John Ford was born.
1897 | Travelers Insurance issues the first automotive policy.
1901 | Actor Clark Gable was born.
1902 | Poet Langston Hughes was born.
1906 | The Federal Government completes its first penitentiary building in Leavenworth, Kansas.
1918 | WWI: The only domestically arrested German spy, Lothar Witzke, is arrested at the southern border.
1920 | The first armored car is introduced in St. Paul, Minnesota.
1932 | Movie director Frank Capra weds Lucille Reyburn.
1935 | Congress: “March of Time,” newsreel premieres at the Capitol.
1940 | Author Philip Francis Nowlan died.
1945 | WWII: U.S. Army forces arrive at the “western wall” of German defenses known as Siegfriedlinie.
1948 | Musician Rick James was born.
1960 | Civil Rights: Four students start the “lunch counter” protests at
Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina.
1964 | Civil Rights: Indiana Democrat Governor Mathew Walsh tries to ban the “Louie Louie” song for obscenity.
1965 | Civil Rights: 700 demonstrators, including Martin Luther King, Jr., were arrested in Selma, Alabama.
1966 | Actor Buster Keaton died.
1968 | POTUS: Richard Nixon announces candidacy for President.
1968 | Musician Lisa Marie Presley was born.
1969 | Journalist Andrew Breitbart was born.
1975 | Civil Rights: Ottis Francis Tabler becomes the first openly homosexual to earn a security clearance at the Defense Department.
1976 | Scientist George Whipple died.
1978 | Civil Rights: Harriet Tubman becomes the first African American woman to be honored on a U.S. postage stamp.
1981 | Aviation entrepreneur Donald Wills Douglas died.
1982 | TV: “Late Night with David Letterman” debuts with Bill Murray as the first guest.
1986 | Musician Diana Ross weds Arne Naess.
1996 | Congress: The Communications Decency Act is passed.
2003 | NASA Space Shuttle implodes upon reentry.
2010 | Wrestler Jack Brisco died.
2013 | Politician Ed Koch died.
2019 | POTUS: Republican Donald Trump withdraws the U.S. from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty due to Russian violations.
2024 | Actor Carl Weathers died.