This Day In History

On July 2, 1881, an assassin shot President James Garfield just four months into his presidency. Dying two months later, his was the second shortest presidency in US history.

On July 1, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1862 into law, to help fund the Civil War. Revenue stamps remained in use off an on for a century, paying the tax on a wide variety of items.

On June 30, 1899, the American military government issued its first stamps in the Philippines. Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565 and continued for more than three centuries. In the late 1800s, the people of the Philippines revolted against the atrocities of their Spanish rulers. At the same time, unrest was growing in the Spanish colony of Cuba.

On June 29, 1995, the US Space Shuttle Atlantis docked the Russian space station Mir for the first time. The mission, STS-71, was the third in the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir program. It began on June 27, 1995, when the Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This was the 100th US human space launch from Cape Canaveral.

On June 25, 1788, Virginia ratified the US Constitution and was admitted as the 10th state of the Union.

On June 20, 1863, West Virginia joined the Union as the 35th state. It had formed from the western counties of Virginia which disagreed with the state’s decision to secede during the Civil War.

On May 23, 1788, South Carolina ratified the Constitution, making it America’s eighth state.

On April 22, 1889, the first land rush into the Unassigned Lands of Oklahoma kicked off at high noon. By evening, 50,000 families settled in Oklahoma and two cities were established with populations over 10,000 each.

On July 3, 1863, Union forces turned the tide of the Civil War with their victory at the Battle of Gettysburg. It helped to raise morale in the North and was a major turning point in the war.

On July 3, 1848, Governor Peter von Scholten abolished slavery in the Danish West Indies (now the US Virgin Islands). Though it would be several years before slavery was truly ended in the islands, this date is celebrated as Emancipation Day, an official holiday, in the US Virgin Islands.

John Singleton Copley was born on July 3, 1738, in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay. Copley was one of Colonial America’s most successful artists and went on to have a thriving career in Europe.

On July 3, 1775, George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.