This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann
“The secret to happiness is freedom.
The secret to freedom is courage.” Carrie Jones
July 14-20, 2025
July 14
1798 – The Sedition Act prohibits public opposition to the government through “false, scandalous, and malicious” writing against the U.S. government in response to foreign threats.
1853 – President Franklin Pierce opens the first U.S. World’s fair at New York’s Crystal Palace. The Palace was destroyed in 1858 by a fire that started in an adjacent lumberyard.
1921 – Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are convicted in Massachusetts of murdering a shoe company’s guard and paymaster during an armed robbery. Italian-born anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair in 1927 at ages 36 and 39 respectively. After requesting a review of the case, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation on the 50th anniversary of their execution that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted.
1934 – The New York Times erroneously declares that Babe Ruth’s 700 home run record will stand for all time. Hank Aaron broke Ruth’s record in 1973 (755 total home runs) and Barry Bonds broke Ruth’s record in 2006 (762 total home runs).
1965 – American space probe Mariner 4 flies within 6,118 miles of Mars after an eight-month journey. This mission provided the first close-up images of the red planet. The mission launched November 28, 1964, and communications were terminated in December 1967. The spacecraft is now in a derelict orbit. Watch a NASA video.
1986 – Richard W. Miller becomes the first FBI agent convicted of espionage. After two trials Miller was convicted in 1993 and sentenced to 20 years, which a judge reduced to 13 years. Miller was released in 1994 and died in 2013 at age 76.
2015 – Harper Lee’s second novel, “Go Set a Watchman,” written in 1957, goes on sale. The book was an earlier version of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” published in 1960, which won a Pulitzer Prize for Literature and was made into a movie in 1962. Lee died in 2016 at age 89.
July 15
1789 – The Marquis de Lafayette (Marie Joseph Yves Roche Gilbert du Motier) is named colonel-general of the new National Guard of Paris. During the Revolutionary War, Congress commissioned Lafayette a Major General in the Continental Army. He assisted George Washington in winning the war and they became life-long friends. Lafayette received honorary U.S. citizenship in 2002, one of only eight people to receive the honor.
1830 – Indian tribes (Sioux, Sauk, and Fox) sign the fourth Treaty of Prairie du Chien giving the U.S. most of Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri. William Clark (of the Lewis and Clark Expedition) represented the U.S. at the signing.
1933 – Wiley Post begins the first solo flight around the world. The flight took 7 days, 18 hours. Post was killed, along with his friend Will Rogers, when their plane crashed in Alaska on August 15, 1935.
1954 – The Boeing 707 becomes the first commercial jet transport plane tested in the U.S. The prototype, nicknamed “Dash 80,” served as a flying lab until it was given to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in 1972. Boeing went on to build more than 14,000 jetliners. The company was started by William Boeing in 1916. Watch actual test flight footage with commentary from the test pilot.
1975 – The U.S.S.R.’s Soyuz 19 and NASA’s Apollo 18 launch and rendezvous in space two days later. It was the first space rendezvous of spacecraft from different countries.
1976 – Brothers Richard and James Schoenfeld and their friend Frederick Woods kidnapped 26 school children and their bus driver Frank Ray in Chowchilla, California. They hid the bus in a quarry and demanded $5 million ransom, but the bus driver Frank Ray helped the students escape. All three kidnappers pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, which was changed to life with the possibility of parole. Richard Schoenfeld, now 70, was paroled in 2012. James, now 71, was paroled in 2015. Frederick Woods, also 71, was finally granted parole in 2022. Frank Ray died in 2012 at age 91. Watch a montage of actual footage.
2002 – “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony and is sentenced to 20 years in prison. In May 2019, Lindh was released early from prison for good behavior with probation for the remaining time of his sentence.
2006 – The social networking service Twitter is launched. The micro-blogging service averages 330 million monthly users. In 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, now called X, for $44 billion.
July 16
1790 – U.S. Congress establishes the District of Columbia, initially known as “The Federal City.” The nation’s capital moved from Philadelphia to Washington, DC in 1800.
1941 – Joe DiMaggio hits in his 56th straight game with the American League New York Yankees. The streak ends the next day in Cleveland, but Joe went on to hit in the next 18 consecutive games. Willie Keeler of Baltimore holds the National League record with 45 consecutive hits during the 1896-97 season. Watch still photos as DiMaggio talks about his hitting streak.
1957 – Marine Major John Glenn sets the transcontinental speed record in an F8U-1P Crusader. Glenn set another record when he becomes the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 in Friendship 7 and the oldest person in space in 1998 at age 77 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. Glenn died in 2016 at the age of 95.
1969 – Apollo 11 launches from Kennedy Space Center carrying Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin on the successful mission to land on the moon.
1988 – Florence Griffith Joyner sets the 100-meter women’s world record at 10.49 seconds during the Olympic time trials in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is considered the fastest woman of all time because her record for the 100-meter and 200-meter has never been beat. Flo-Jo died in her sleep in 1998 at age 38 from an epileptic seizure. Watch the fastest woman ever.
1999 – John F. Kennedy, Jr. (piloting a Piper Saratoga), his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette, are killed in a plane crash off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
2015 – A 24-year-old Kuwaiti-born Muslim terrorist shoots and kills 5 American soldiers at a Chattanooga, Tennessee, naval reserve training center. The soldiers returned fire to help others escape. The terrorist was shot to death by police. His father was on the terrorist watch list.
July 17
1775 – The first U.S. military hospital (medical department) is approved in Massachusetts with a Director-General (chief physician of the Hospital), four surgeons, an apothecary (pharmacist), and nurses (usually wives or widows of military personnel). The pay for the surgeons and the pharmacist was $1.66 a day and nurses $2 a month.
1938 – Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan leaves New York for Los Angeles in his modified Curtiss Robin and ends up in Ireland. He was denied permission to fly across the Atlantic and claimed his trans-Atlantic flight was due to a navigation error. The New York Post printed its headline backwards. Watch a 50th anniversary news report with Corrigan.
1955 – Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California. The Magic Kingdom covers 160 acres and cost $17 million to build. Watch Walt Disney’s brief opening speech.
1997 – After 117 years in business, the Woolworth Corp. closes the last of its 400 stores. The first store opened on 1879 as Woolworth’s Great Five Cent Store in Utica, New York. It soon failed and the second store opened in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, after founder Frank Woolworth brought in his brother Charles.
2019 – Mexican drug cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, now 68, is sentenced in New York to life in prison plus 30 years and ordered to forfeit $12.7 billion. He is incarcerated at Colorado’s Supermax, the most secure federal prison.
July 18
1768 – Boston Gazette publishes “Liberty Song,” America’s first patriotic song.
1947 – President Harry Truman signs the Presidential Succession Act. The line of succession after the Vice President is Speaker of the House, President Pro Tem of the Senate, Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Defense, the Attorney General, Secretaries of the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, HHS, HUD, Transportation, Energy, Education, VA, and Homeland Security (as long as they are constitutionally eligible).
1969 – Mary Jo Kopechne dies when Senator Edward Kennedy drives his car off the Chappaquiddick Bridge. Kopechne, age 28, drowned in the car. Two fishermen found the submerged car in the morning after Kennedy failed to report the accident. Kennedy, then age 37, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended sentence.
1986 – Videotapes are released showing Titanic’s sunken remains. Marine geologist Robert Ballard discovered the Titanic wreckage 350 miles southeast of Newfoundland, 13,000 feet down on the ocean floor. Watch a video of a 2004 dive on the wreckage.
2015 – PayPal, an online payment system, is spun off from eBay as a separate publicly traded company on the NASDAQ.
July 19
1848 – The first U.S. women’s rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York, to “discuss women’s social, civil, and religious condition, and rights of women.” Nearly 300 people attended the 2-day convention. Organizers included Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
1899 – New York City newspaper boys revolt when Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst raised the price they charged the boys to sell bundles of 100 newspapers from 50 to 60 cents. The children, boys and girls, stood their ground until the newspaper moguls backed down 2 weeks later.
1945 – The USS submarine Cod saves 56 sailors from the sinking Dutch sub O-19 in the only international sub-to-sub rescue in history. After being mothballed, recommissioned, and decommissioned, the USS Cod opened for public tours in 1976 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986. It is now docked in Lake Erie at Cleveland, Ohio. Watch part of the rescue.
1993 – President Clinton fires FBI Director William Sessions after he was accused of using an FBI plane to visit his family. Sessions, a Republican, was appointed by President Reagan.
2017 – A 16-year-old victim of serial killer John Wayne Gacy is identified by DNA 41 years after his remains were discovered under Gacy’s house. Jimmy Haakenson was one of 33 murder victims. Of the six who remain unidentified, another victim, Francis Wayne Alexander, was identified by DNA and forensic genealogy in 2021. Police are still trying to identify the other five victims through DNA.
July 20
1881 – Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn, surrenders to federal troops and is forced onto a reservation. He was shot and killed in 1890 while being arrested by U.S. government and Indian agents who feared he would lead an uprising.
1917 – The World War I draft lottery is held. Number 258 was the first number drawn.
1940 – Billboard publishes the first ranking of record singles. Tommy Dorsey scored the first #1 single with “I’ll Never Smile Again.” The song, featuring vocals by Frank Sinatra, stayed #1 for 12 weeks.
1942 – The first detachment of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs) begins basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. There were 440 officer candidates (average age 30) and 125 enlisted women (average age 24).
1969 – Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. aboard Apollo 11 (The Eagle) become the first men to land on the moon. Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit aboard the command spacecraft. Watch the Eagle land.
1976 – Hank Aaron hits home run #755, his final major league homer, off Angels’ pitcher Dick Drago. Babe Ruth set the home run record at 714 in 1927. Aaron played his last game on October 3rd and was inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1982. Hammerin’ Hank died in 2021 at age 86.
2012 – Twelve people are killed and 70 injured after a gunman opens fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. James Eagan Holmes was convicted of murder and given 12 life sentences plus 3,318 years for attempted murder.
Image from: kids.nationalgeographic.com
