July 29th
Today in America's Present Past
1609 | Indian Wars: French explorer Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs at Ticonderoga, New York.
1676 | Nathaniel Bacon declared a rebel for assembling frontiersmen to protect settlers from Indians.
1715 | Ten Spanish treasure galleons sink off Florida's coast in a hurricane, some still unrecovered.
1773 | The first schoolhouse west of the Allegheny Mountains was completed in Schoenbrunn, Ohio.
1786 | The Pittsburgh Gazette, the first newspaper west of the Alleghenies, was published.
1794 | Civil Rights: The African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia, dedicated.
1796 | Entrepreneur Walter Hunt was born.
1797 | Entrepreneur Daniel Drew was born.
1825 | Poet and composer Micah Hawkins died.
1847 | Cumberland School of Law was founded in Lebanon, Tennessee.
1861 | President Roosevelt’s first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, was born.
1864 | Civil War: The Battle of Macon, Georgia.
1866 | Entrepreneur George Morrison was born.
1869 | Author Booth Tarkington was born.
1905 | Actress Clara Bow was born.
1905 | Poet Stanley Kunitz was born.
1910 | Civil Rights: Slocum massacre.
1914 | The first transcontinental phone link was made between New York City and San Francisco, California.
1914 | Activist Dovie Hudson was born.
1933 | Following a police shootout with Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow's gang in Iowa, one member, Clyde’s brother Buck Barrow, is left dead.
1936 | Activist and politician Elizabeth Dole was born.
1937 | Entrepreneur Charles Schwab was born.
1938 | Olympic National Park was established in Washington state.
1942 | Actor Tony Sirico was born.
1949 | Writer Marilyn Tucker Quayle was born.
1953 | Cold War: A U.S. bomber was shot down by Soviet Air Defense Forces in the Sea of Japan, north of Vladivostok.
1953 | Director Ken Burns was born.
1957 | Floyd Patterson TKOs Tommy Jackson in 10 for the heavyweight boxing title.
1957 | TV: Jack Paar's "The Tonight Show" debuted.
1958 | POTUS: Republican President Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, establishing NASA.
1960 | Publisher Richard Simon died.
1962 | Pro wrestler Scott Steine was born in Bay City, Michigan.
1966 | Musician Martina McBride was born.
1967 | Civil Rights: A Long, hot summer of riots continues in Rockford, Illinois.
1972 | Actor Wil Wheaton was born.
1975 | POTUS: Republican President Ford becomes the first President to visit the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.
1981 | Urban planner Robert Moses died.
1982 | Inventor Vladimir Zworykin died.