Events
- 1639 - Harvard College was named for clergyman John Harvard.
- 1862 - American Civil War: The U.S. federal government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.
- 1865 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America reluctantly agrees to the use of African American troops.
- 1897 - San Diego State University founded.
- 1925 - Scopes Trial: A law in Tennessee prohibits the teaching of evolution.
- 1930 - The news of the discovery of Pluto was telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory.
- 1933 - Great Depression: Banks in the United States begin to re-open after the Presidentially mandated "bank holiday".
- 1943 - World War II: In Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700.
- 1962 - Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the USA, proposes a document, called Operation Northwoods, regarding performing terrorist attacks in Guantanamo Bay, to Secretary of Defense Robert Mcnamara. The proposal is scrapped and President John F. Kennedy removes Lemnitzer from his position.
- 1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.
- 1986 - Microsoft has its Initial public offering.
- 1991 - The United States Justice Department announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
- 1997 - The Phoenix lights were seen over Phoenix, Arizona, & were seen by hundreds of people, & millions on television. And are now, hotly debated in controversy.
- 2005 - Terry Ratzmann shoots and kills six members of the Living Church of God and the minister at Sheraton Inn in Brookfield, Wisconsin before killing himself.