1863 – The United States begins its first military draft; exemptions cost $300.
1865 – Four conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln are hanged.
1885 – G. Moore Peters patented the cartridge-loading machine.
1898 – U.S. President William McKinley signs the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States.
1917 – Aleksandr Kerensky formed a provisional government in Russia.
1920 – A device known as the radio compass was used for the first time on a U.S. Navy airplane near Norfolk, VA.
1937 – The Marco Polo Bridge Incident provides the Imperial Japanese Army with a pretext for starting the Second Sino-Japanese War.
1941 – The American occupation of Iceland replaces the British occupation.
1941 – World War II: Beirut is occupied by Free France and British troops.
1944 – World War II: Largest Banzai charge of the Pacific War at the Battle of Saipan.
1947 – The Roswell incident, the (supposed) crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell in New Mexico.
1950 – The U.N. Security Council authorized military aid for South Korea.
1952 – The ocean liner SS United States passes Bishop Rock on her maiden voyage, breaking the transatlantic speed record to become the fastest passenger ship in the world.
1953 – Ernesto “Che” Guevara sets out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador.
1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law.
1981 – U.S. President Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
1987 – Public testimony at the Iran-Contra hearing began.
2003 – In Liberia, a team of U.S. military experts arrived at the U.S. embassy compound to assess whether to deploy troops as part of a peacekeeping force in the country.
2013 – A De Havilland Otter air taxi crashes in Soldotna, Alaska, killing ten people.