This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann
“In the summer of 1776 our Founding Fathers sought to secure our independence and our liberties
that remain the foundation of our nation today.” Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)
July 20-26, 2026
July 20
1881 – Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn, surrendered 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 was held. Number 258 was the first number drawn.
1940 – Billboard published 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) began 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) became 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 hit 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 were 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.
July 21
1861 – The Battle of Bull Run at Manassas Junction, Virginia, recognized as the first major battle of the U.S. Civil War, began. The first land battle of the Civil War was actually the Battle of Carthage (Missouri), fought on July 5th.
1865 – Wild Bill Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, Missouri, after quarreling over a card game. This was the first recorded case of two men taking part in a quick-draw duel. The following month Hickok was acquitted of murder after pleading self-defense.
1925 – The Scopes Monkey Trial ended when Tennessee high school biology teacher John Scopes is found guilty of teaching Darwinism. He was fined $100. His defense attorney was Clarence Darrow and the prosecutor was three-time Democrat presidential nominee William Jennings Bryant, who died five days after the trial.
1930 – The U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) was established.
1969 – Apollo 11 launched from the surface of the moon after Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon. A total of 12 people walked on the moon, all Americans, in six manned moon landings. Watch Apollo 17 lift off from the moon in 1972. It was the last manned moon landing.
1974 – The House Judiciary Committee approved two Articles of Impeachment against President Richard Nixon following the Watergate investigation. Nixon resigned on August 9th.
1980 – Selective Service (draft) registration began in the U.S. for men aged 19 and 20 years old following Proclamation #4771 signed by President Carter in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
2004 – White House officials were briefed on the September 11 commission’s final report. The 575-page report concluded that hijackers exploited “deep institutional failings within our government.” The report was released to the public the next day.
2011 – NASA’s Space Shuttle program ended with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135. NASA’s space shuttle program began with its first launch (Columbia mission STS-1) on April 12, 1981. Watch the final landing.
July 22
1587 – The second English colony was established on Roanoke Island off North Carolina. John White sailed back to England for additional supplies. He wasn’t able to return until 1590 and found the colony deserted under mysterious circumstances.
1893 – Katharine Lee Bates wrote the poem, “America the Beautiful” after being inspired during a visit to Pike’s Peak in Colorado. She didn’t publish it for two years, when it was then set to the music by composer S. A. Ward’s “Materna,” the tune to which we sing it today.
1933 – Wiley Post completed the first solo around-the-world flight. He traveled 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes.
1934 – “Public Enemy No. 1” John Dillinger was mortally wounded by FBI agents outside Chicago’s Biograph Theatre. Watch a Smithsonian video about his criminal life.
1937 – The U.S. Senate rejected President Roosevelt’s proposal to add up to six more justices to the Supreme Court.
1975 – The House of Representatives voted to restore citizenship to General Robert E. Lee. In 1865, Lee signed an amnesty oath issued by President Andrew Johnson but was not pardoned because Secretary of State William Seward (of Seward’s folly fame) gave the application to a friend as a souvenir. A National Archives examiner eventually found Lee’s oath and initiated the amnesty process.
1994 – OJ Simpson plead “Absolutely 100 percent not guilty” of murdering his ex-wife and her friend. He was found not guilty on October 3, 1995. One of OJ’s attorneys was Robert “Keeping Up With The” Kardashian. Kardashian died in 2003 at age 59.
1999 – The Woodstock 99 Music Festival (30th anniversary of Woodstock) began in Rome, New York, and lasted until the 25th. It was attended by an estimated 400,000 and ended early due to violence. Woodstock 50 (50th anniversary) was scheduled for August 16-18, 2019, but it did not take place.
2003 – Saddam Hussein’s sons were killed by members of the U.S. 101st Airborne and Special Forces. Saddam Hussein was executed in 2006.
July 23
1715 – The first lighthouse in America was authorized for construction on Little Brewster Island, Massachusetts, and is known as the Boston Light.
1880 – The first application of hydropower electricity generation within an industrial setting in the U.S. occurred when the Wolverine Chair Factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan, powered up 16 brush-arc lamps using a water turbine. The world’s first commercial hydroelectric power plant built to provide electricity to buildings outside the plant opened in September 30, 1882, on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin.
1938 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved the first federal game preserve. The area covers 2,000 acres in Utah.
1956 – The Bell X-2 rocket plane, piloted by Col. Frank Everest, set a world aircraft speed record of 1,895 miles per hour (Mach 2.87) at 60,000 feet over Edwards Air Force Base in California. In 1967, the X-15 set the official world record for the fastest speed ever reached by a manned aircraft at 4,520 mph. The record still stands. Watch a newsreel of the X-2 flight.
1989 – FOX topped ABC, NBC, and CBS in TV ratings for the first time with their show “America’s Most Wanted.” The show was cancelled several times and resumed by public demand. The 6-year-old son of the host John Walsh was kidnapped and murdered in 1981.
2015 – NASA’s Kepler mission announced the discovery of the most Earth-like planet yet, named Kepler-452b, 1,400 light years from Earth (over 8 quadrillion miles).
July 24
1758 – George Washington was admitted to Virginia House of Burgesses. He was 26 years old. Washington represented Frederick County and Fairfax County until 1775. The first meeting of the colonial House of Burgesses was held in Jamestown in 1619.
1824 – A Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, newspaper published the results of the first public opinion poll showing a clear lead for presidential candidate Andrew Jackson in a four-candidate race for the presidency. Jackson received a plurality of votes but lost when the House of Representatives settled the contested election by selecting John Quincy Adams, who actually received fewer popular and electoral votes. It was the only election when this ever happened. Four years later, Jackson handily won the White House by defeating incumbent John Quincy Adams.
1915 – The excursion ship Eastland, carrying Western Electric Company employees to a picnic, capsized on Lake Michigan killing 844 of the 2,573 passengers. Compare that with 815 of the 2,435 passengers who were killed on the Titanic three years earlier. The Eastland almost capsized in July 1904 with 3,000 passengers on board and again in 1906 with 2,530 passengers on board. Watch a 7-minute report with actual footage and photos by the Chicago Tribune on the 100th anniversary of the sinking.
1961 – A U.S. commercial airplane carrying 33 passengers and 5 crew was hijacked to Cuba. It was the first time an American carrier flight originating from the U.S. was hijacked to Cuba. Between 1961 and 1973, almost 160 U.S. aircraft were hijacked.
2005 – Lance Armstrong retired after winning a record seventh consecutive Tour de France victory. He was stripped of his titles in 2012 for “doping.” In 2013, he admitted during an Oprah Winfrey interview that he took performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong is now 54 years old.
2019 – Facebook agrees to pay a $5 billion fine for violating consumer privacy.
July 25
1775 – Maryland issued currency depicting King George III trampling the Magna Carta.
1861 – Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution stating that “the present deplorable civil war” . . . “is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression” but is to be “fought to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union.” Sponsored by Representative John Crittenden of Kentucky and Senator (and future president) Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the purpose was to limit the goals of the war.
1946 – Micheline Bernardini modeled the first bikini at a Paris fashion show. Mechanical engineer Louis Réard and fashion designer Jacques Heim invented the bikini using 30-square-inches of cloth. Réard named the bombshell swimsuit after the Bikini Atoll where the U.S. tests atomic bombs.
1990 – Roseanne Barr slaughtered the National Anthem at San Diego Padre’s baseball game. Billboard ranked Barr’s performance as the second worst public singing of the National Anthem ever. The worst was Kat DeLuna’s performance at a 2008 Dallas Cowboys game. Watch Barr express regret for her performance in an interview.
2010 – WikiLeaks released to the public more than 90,000 internal reports involving the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan from 2004-2010. WikiLeaks was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, who sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in June 2012. He left in 2019 and was sentenced to 50 weeks in jail in England for violating terms of his bail. He accepted a U.S. plea deal in June 2024 by pleading guilty to one count of espionage and was sentenced to time served. He returned to Australia. Assange is now 55 years old.
July 26
1775 – Benjamin Franklin became the first U.S. Postmaster General.
1908 – U.S. Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issued an order to staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation).
1947 – President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act, establishing the Central Intelligence Agency.
1964 – Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa was convicted of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to prison. The case against Hoffa and organized crime was pursued by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. In 1971, President Nixon commuted Hoffa’s sentence to time served. Hoffa disappeared in 1975 and his body was never found.
1990 – President H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act passed by Congress. The law prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all places open to the general public.
2005 – The Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-114) launched as NASA’s first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003. There was a total of 135 Space Shuttle missions, ending in July of 2011.
Image from: marca.com
