This Day In History

On April 17, 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano became the first European to see New York harbor.

On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. The act freed over 3,100 people enslaved in the US capital nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation would free all enslaved people in the US.

On April 15, 1865, President Lincoln died less than 12 hours after being shot by John Wilkes Booth. He was the first US president to be assassinated, just as the Civil War was drawing to a close.

One of the most well known maritime disasters in history occurred on April 14, 1912, when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank.

On March 18, 1892, Canada’s Lord Stanley of Preston announced he would donate a silver challenge cup to be awarded to the territory’s best hockey team. Today, the Stanley Cup is the oldest trophy in professional sports and the most revered symbol in hockey.

Famed golfer Bobby Jones was born on March 17, 1902, in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1930, he became the first golfer to win all four major tournaments, achieving the sport’s first Grand Slam.

On January 15, 1892, Dr. James Naismith published the rules for a sport he’d invented – basketball. It quickly caught on, with the first professional league forming in 1898.

On December 26, 1919, Babe Ruth was sold by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees, ushering in the long-standing superstitious Curse of the Bambino.

On April 18, 1942, Jimmy Doolittle led a daring raid against the Japanese in retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

On April 18, 1900, the US Post Office issued its first stamp books. The books proved to be very popular with the general public and several post offices sold out of their supplies on the first day they were placed on sale. 

On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere took his historic ride to warn the people of Lexington and Concord that the British were coming.  It’s one of the most famous tales from the Revolutionary War, popularized and romanticized in a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

On April 18, 1968, American entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch purchased Britain’s famed London Bridge and relocated it to Arizona. Though it was dubbed “McCulloch’s Folly,” it turned out to be a successful gamble and became one of Arizona’s most popular attractions.