On August 7, 1789, Congress approved a law placing the nation’s lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and public piers under federal care. With that decision, the new government began building a coordinated system to guide ships past hazards and safely into American ports.
On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, giving the federal government powerful new tools to confront racial discrimination at the polls. The law followed decades of blocked registrations, intimidation, and a voting-rights campaign that drew national attention to Selma, Alabama.
On August 5, 1926, master illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini spent more than 91 minutes sealed inside a coffin submerged in a New York City swimming pool. The feat tested his ability to remain calm as the air around him grew hotter and harder to breathe.
On August 4, 1790, President George Washington passed a new Tariff Act that created the United States Revenue Cutter Service, the forerunner of the US Coast Guard. The Revenue Cutter Service was America’s only armed maritime service until the Navy was formed in 1798.
On August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed from southern Spain in search of a westward route to the valuable trading centers of Asia. The voyage did not lead to China as he expected, but carried three small ships across an ocean far wider than his calculations suggested.
Though he had been in poor health for some time, President Warren G. Harding’s death on August 2, 1923, shocked a nation that had watched him greet cheering crowds only days earlier. The lack of an autopsy, combined with scandals emerging from his administration, soon encouraged rumors that lasted for decades.
Born on August 1, 1779, in western Maryland, Francis Scott Key became forever linked to the flag he saw above Fort McHenry after a 25-hour British bombardment. That sight inspired the four-stanza poem that became “The Star-Spangled Banner,” though the song did not become the national anthem until 1931.
Civil rights leader Whitney Moore Young Jr. was born on July 31, 1921, in Shelby County, Kentucky. He served as Executive Director of the National Urban League, helped organize the March on Washington, and advised several presidents.
On July 30, 1864, Union forces launched the surprise Battle of the Crater. They dug tunnels under Confederate positions and set off explosives to catch them by surprise, but poor decisions led the battle to turn against them.