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 27-Aug 2, 2026
July 27
1789 – President Washington signed legislation establishing the Department of Foreign Affairs (now called the State Department). Representative and future president James Madison of New York introduced the bill.
1804 – The 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, directing the Electors to vote for a President and a Vice President. Prior to the amendment, the candidate with the most Electoral votes became president and the candidate with second most votes became vice president. In 1801, the Electoral vote ended in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Jefferson was elected president over Burr on the 36th ballot in the House of Representatives after being swayed by Alexander Hamilton. Vice President Burr killed Hamilton in a duel on July 11, 1804.
1909 – Orville Wright set a record for the longest airplane flight. He tested the first Army airplane at Fort Myers, Virginia, and kept it in the air for 1 hour 12 minutes and 40 seconds. Watch a silent video of the historic flight.
1953 – The Armistice was signed ending the Korean War. Over 50,000 Americans and millions of Koreans and Chinese were killed during the three-year-long war.
1965 – President Johnson signed the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act that requires cigarette makers print health warnings on all cigarette packages about the effects of smoking.
1987 – The first salvaging of the Titanic wreckage began. Robert Ballard located the wreckage in 1985. The mini-submarine Nautile dove 2.5 miles below the ocean’s surface to retrieve objects not seen since the 1912 sinking. Watch a National Geographic video on the 100th anniversary of the sinking.
1995 – The Korean War Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC.
2017 – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos became the world’s richest person ($91.4 billion) for half a day when he briefly overtakes Bill Gates. Elon Musk became the world’s richest person in 2022 and has a net worth around $250 billion.
July 28
1900 – Louis Lassing of New Haven, Connecticut, said his diner is the first to put a hamburger on a bun. (He is one of many who makes this claim.)
1932 – Two unemployed WWI veterans were killed in a scuffle with police in Washington, DC, during the “Bonus March.” President Hoover called in federal troops when thousands of “Bonus Marchers” demand the government cash in their bonuses early. The clash with the troops was led by General Douglass MacArthur and supported by Major George S. Patton. Watch a video by Historic Films.
1945 – The Senate ratified the United Nation charter. Bill Langer (R-ND) and Henrik Shipstead ((R-MN) were the only senators who voted against the charter.
1982 – San Francisco, California, became the first city in the U.S. to ban private ownership of handguns. A state court concluded that under California law such decisions were reserved to the state legislature and can’t be made by individual cities.
1998 – Monica Lewinsky received blanket immunity from prosecution to testify before a grand jury about her relationship with President Bill Clinton. She gave her deposition to the Senate in February 1999. Clinton was impeached by the House for perjury and obstruction of justice in December 1998, but he was acquitted by the Senate in February 1999. Lewinsky is now 53 years old and Clinton is 79.
2017 – The late Senator John McCain (R-AZ) cast the deciding vote against repealing Obamacare.
July 29
1920 – The first of three JL-6 aircraft left New York for San Francisco on the inaugural transcontinental airmail flight. Former WWI flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker was one of the passengers.
1928 – Walt Disney’s “Steamboat Willie” (Mickey Mouse) was released. Watch the primitive cartoon.
1945 – After delivering the Atomic Bomb across the Pacific, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine. Since the mission was secret, the ship was not reported missing. Survivors were accidentally found four days later and rescued. Only 317 of the 1,196 men on board survived in the shark-infested sea. Only one of them, Harold Bray, is still living.
1957 – Jack Paar began hosting the “Tonight” show on NBC-TV. The show was renamed “The Jack Paar Show,” with Paar hosting for five years. Steve Allen was the next host (1953-1957). Then came Johnny Carson (1962-1992), Jay Leno (1992-2009 and 2010-2014), Conan O’Brien (2009-2010), and the current host since 2014, Jimmy Fallon.
1958 – President Eisenhower signed into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act (NASA).
1988 – The last Playboy Club in the U.S. (in Lansing, Michigan) closed. The first Playboy Club was opened by Hugh Hefner in 1960. Hefner died in 2017 at age 91.
1998 – The United Auto Workers union ended a 54-day strike against General Motors. The strike causes $2.8 billion in lost revenues.
2016 – Hillary Clinton accepted the Democrat Party nomination for U.S. president at the convention in Philadelphia, becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major political party. She lost to Donald Trump.
July 30
1619 – The first representative assembly in America convened in Jamestown, Virginia as the House of Burgesses.
1839 – Slaves took over the slave ship Amistad after 60 days at sea and are arrested in New York. The district court judge ruled that the slaves were free men, and ordered them released from prison. He also ordered that the U.S. government transport them back to Africa. The Supreme Court upheld the decision in 1841.
1932 – Walt Disney’s “Flowers and Trees” premiered. It was the first Academy Award winning cartoon and first cartoon short to use Technicolor. Watch the video, which includes sound.
1942 – President FDR signed the bill creating the U.S. Women’s Naval Reserve, the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service).
1956 – The phrase “In God We Trust” was adopted as the U.S. national motto.
1965 – President Johnson signed into law Social Security Act that establishes Medicare and Medicaid. It went into effect the following year.
1998 – A group of Ohio machine-shop workers (who call themselves the Lucky 13) won the $295.7 million Powerball jackpot. It was the largest-ever American lottery to date. The largest single lottery jackpot in U.S. history was Powerball in 2022 at $2.04 billion.
2014 – The European Union and the U.S. extend sanctioned on Russia to include banks, energy, and defense firms. Moscow denied the allegation that Russia was arming rebels in Eastern Ukraine.
July 31
1792 – The cornerstone was laid for the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, the first United States government building.
1953 – The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was created during the Eisenhower administration. President Harding proposed a department of education and welfare in 1923. HEW was a cabinet-level department until 1979, when it was separated into different departments.
1971 – Astronauts rode in a vehicle on the moon for the first time in a lunar rover vehicle (LRV). Watch the lunar ride.
1987 – Rockwell International was awarded a contract to build the fifth and last space shuttle, Endeavor, to replace the Challenger, which exploded on launch in 1986. The Endeavor flew 25 missions from 1992 to 2011.
1991 – The U.S. Senate voted to allow women to fly combat aircraft. Air Force Colonel Martha McSally was the first woman to fly a combat mission after the 43-year ban was lifted. She was a U.S. Representative and Senator (R-AZ) until 2020.
2014 – The U.S. agreed to resupply arms to Israel – including rocket launchers, mortar rounds, and grenades – despite condemnation of civilian casualties in Gaza.
August 1
1790 – The first U.S. census was taken showing a population of 3,939,214, of which 697,624 are slaves. The current U.S. population is about 342 million, based on the 2025 census estimates.
1855 – Castle Clinton (aka Fort Clinton) in New York City opened as the first U.S. receiving station for immigrants. More than eight million people arrived in the U.S. until Ellis Island opens on January 1, 1892. Castle Clinton is now a national monument.
1907 – The U.S. Army established an aeronautical division, which becomes the U.S. Air Force on September 18, 1947.
1943 – The Navy patrol torpedo boat PT-109 sank near the Solomon Islands after being attacked by a Japanese destroyer. The boat was under the command of future president Navy Lt. John F. Kennedy. The 11 surviving crewmembers swam to Naru Island and were rescued on August 7th. The last surviving crewman of PT-109, Gerard Zinser, died in 2001 at age 82. Watch a short “American Experience” video.
1957 – The Bridgers and Paxton Office Building in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was the first commercial building to be heated by solar energy. It is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
1972 – Carl Bernstein, now 82, and Bob Woodward, now 83, published their first article exposing the Watergate scandal.
1977 – Gary Powers died when his news helicopter crashes in Los Angeles. Powers was 48 years old. Powers was the former CIA U-2 pilot who was shot down while on a surveillance mission over Russia in 1960 and held for two years. On August 19, 1960, Powers was convicted of espionage in Russia and sentenced to 10 years confinement. Powers was returned to the U.S. in February 1962 in a prisoner exchange.
2001 – Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore had a Ten Commandments monument installed in the judiciary building, leading to a lawsuit to have the monument removed and Moore removed from office. District Court Judge Myron Thompson ordered Moore to remove the Ten Commandments from the courthouse rotunda within fifteen days. Moore refused, but the monument was later moved to a room that was not open for public viewing. On August 23, 2003, a panel of the Alabama Court of the Judiciary unanimously voted to remove Judge Moore from the bench for not renouncing God. In 2012, Moore was re-elected as Alabama’s Chief Justice. In 2016, the Alabama Judiciary Inquiry Commission brought charges of six ethics violations against Moore and he was suspended pending a trial. He was found guilty, lost his appeal, and resigned in April 2017. Moore lost his bid for the U.S. Senate in a special election to replace Jeff Sessions in December 2017. Watch part of the 2003 trial and the verdict to remove Justice Moore.
August 2
1819 – The first parachute jump in U.S. took place in New York when Charles Guille jumps from a hot air balloon and travels airborne for half an hour over about eight miles before successfully landing in Bushwick.
1921 – A Chicago jury brought back a not guilty verdict against eight Chicago White Sox players for “throwing” the 1919 baseball World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds won the series 5 games to 3. The trial was dubbed the “Black Sox Scandal.” The following day Baseball Commissioner Judge “Kenesaw Mountain” Landis announced that he would banish from baseball for life the eight White Sox players involved in the 1919 World Series scandal, despite their acquittal, including “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. Watch a Smithsonian video of the scandal with actual footage.
1939 – President Roosevelt signed the Hatch Act, prohibiting civil service employees from taking an active part in “Pernicious Political Activities.”
1994 – Congressional hearings began on the Clinton Whitewater scandal. In 1978, Bill and Hillary entered into a land deal in Arkansas with James and Susan McDougal. As a result of the investigation, James was convicted of 18 counts of fraud, sentenced to five years in prison, and died in prison in 1998. Susan was convicted of fraud and sentenced to two years in prison. Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker was convicted of mail fraud but served no jail time. Vince Foster, a friend of the Clinton’s and White House Counsel, “committed suicide” in 1993. Bill and Hillary were implicated in the Whitewater scandal, but avoided any charges of wrongdoing.
2018 – Apple became the first American publicly listed company to reach $1 trillion in value. Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon have since reached a valuation of over $1 trillion.
Image from: en.wikipedia.com
