1860 – The first successful silver mill in America began operations. The mill was in Virginia City, NV.

1874 – A patent for the sprinkler head was given to Harry S. Parmelee.

1877 – The two moons of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer. He named them Phobos and Deimos.

1896 – Harvey Hubbell received a patent for the electric light bulb socket with a pull-chain.

1909 – The American ship Arapahoe became the first to ever use the SOS distress signal off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC.

1921 – Alex Haley, author of Roots and The Autobiography of Malcolm X is born on this day in Ithaca, New York.

1924 – Newsreel pictures were taken of U.S. presidential candidates for the first time.

1934 – Alcatraz, in San Francisco Bay, received federal prisoners for the first time.

1941 – The Atlantic Charter was signed by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

1942 – During World War II, Pierre Laval publicly announced “the hour of liberation for France is the hour when Germany wins the war.”

1945 – The Allies informed Japan that they would determine Emperor Hirohito’s future status after Japan’s surrender.

1951 – The first major league baseball game to be televised in color was broadcast. The Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves 8-1.

1954 – Seven years of fighting came to an end in Indochina. A formal peace was in place for the French and the Communist Vietminh.

1962 – Andrian Nikolayev, of the Soviet Union, was launched on a 94-hour flight. He was the third Russian to go into space.

1965 – The U.S. conducted a second launch of “Surveyor-SD 2” for a landing on the Moon surface test.

1965 – Watts Riots begin The five days of violence left 34 dead, 1,032 injured, nearly 4,000 arrested, and $40 million worth of property destroyed.

1971 – Harmon Killebrew of the Minnesota Twins got

1975 – The U.S. vetoed the proposed admission of North and South Vietnam to the United Nations. The Security Counsel had already refused to consider South Korea’s application.

1984 – Carl Lewis won his fourth gold medal in the 1984 Summer Olympics.

1984 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan was preparing for his weekly radio broadcast when, during testing of the microphone, the President said of the Soviet Union, “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I just signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” -a joke ?

1984 – The Cincinnati Reds honored major league All-Star and Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench by retiring his uniform (#5).

1988 – Dick Thornburgh was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be the next attorney general. He succeeded Edwin Meese III.

1990 – Egyptian and Moroccan troops joined U.S. forces in Saudia Arabia to help protect from a possible Iraqi attack.

1991 – The space shuttle Atlantis ended its nine-day journey by landing safely.

1992 – In Bloomington, MN, the Mall of America opened. It was the largest shopping mall in the United States.

1994 – The Tenth International Conference on AIDS ended in Japan. 

1994 – A U.S. federal jury awarded $286.8 million to about 10,000 commercial fishermen for losses as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. 

1995 – All U.S. nuclear tests were banned by President Clinton.

1997 – U.S. President Clinton made the first use of the line-item veto approved by Congress, rejecting three items in spending and tax bills.

1998 – British Petroleum became No. 3 among oil companies with the $49 billion purchase of Amoco. It was the largest foreign takeover of a U.S. company.

2003 – Charles Taylor, President of Liberia, flew into exile after ceding power to his vice president, Moses Blah.

2003 – In Kabul, NATO took command of the 5,000-strong peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.