February 7
Today in America's Present Past
1795 | The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified.
1804 | Entrepreneur John Deere was born.
1817 | Baltimore, Maryland, becomes the first U.S. city lit by gas street lamps.
1818 | First U.S. educational magazine begins publication, the “Academician.”
1862 | Civil War: Union forces liberate Roanoke Island, North Carolina. General Ambrose Burnside led this amphibious operation. The victory gave the Union control over the North Carolina sound, providing a “back door” for operations against Virginia.
1867 | Author Laura Ingalls Wilder was born.
1882 | Greenwood, New York Insurrection of 1882.
1882 | Boxer John L. Sullivan knocks out Paddy Ryan. This is often considered the last great championship fight of the “bare-knuckle” era.
1894 | The Cripple Creek Miner’s strike begins.
1885 | Novelist Sinclair Lewis was born.
1904 | The “Great Baltimore” fire starts, destroying 1,500 buildings. The fire burned for over 30 hours. A major legacy of this disaster was the standardization of fire hose couplings; fire engines from D.C. and Philly arrived to help but couldn’t connect their hoses to Baltimore’s hydrants.
1907 | Civil Rights: The “Mud March,” the nation’s first large-scale march in support of women’s suffrage.
1919 | Medal of Honor recipient William Halford died.
1931 | Amelia Earhart weds George Palmer Putnam.
1937 | Statesman Elihu Root died.
1938 | Entrepreneur Harvey S. Firestone died.
1943 | WWII: Domestic shoe rationing begins to support the war effort.
1945 | WWII: U.S. forces cross the Sauer River, pushing back German forces.
1948 | Omar Bradley succeeds Dwight D. Eisenhower as U.S. Army Chief of Staff.
1962 | POTUS: Democrat President Kennedy begins the blockade of Cuba.
1962 | Musician Garth Brooks was born.
1964 | Pan Am Flight 101 landed at JFK Airport in New York bringing the Beatles to America for the first time and sparking “Beatlemania.”
1965 | Vietnam War: The U.S. begins regular bombing and strafing of North Vietnam. Following a Viet Cong attack on a U.S. base at Pleiku, President Johnson ordered Operation Flaming Dart, marking the start of sustained retaliatory air strikes against the North.
1965 | Comedian Chris Rock was born.
1973 | POTUS: The U.S. Senate creates a committee on “Presidential Campaign Activities” as the Watergate scandal unfolds. Formally known as the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, it was chaired by Senator Sam Ervin (D-NC) and eventually led to the televised hearings that exposed the scandal.
1978 | Actor Ashton Kutcher was born.
1983 | Civil Rights: Elizabeth Dole was sworn in as the first female Transportation Secretary. She was the first woman to lead a cabinet department that had not been traditionally “female-oriented” (like Health or Education).
1991 | Journalist John Steinbeck, IV died.
2001 | Author Anne Morrow Lindbergh died.
2020 | Painter James McGarrell died.