This Day In History: July 11, 1656 “Why was it that the coming of two women so shook ye, as if a formidable army had invaded your borders.” – George Bishop On July 11, 1656, a ship called the Swallow docked in Boston Harbor in the Massachusetts Bay colony. On board were two women named Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, […]

This Day In History: July 10, 1553 On July 10, 1553, Lady Jane Grey, the great-niece of King Henry VIII, ascended the throne of England as the result of a plot masterminded by John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland. Her “reign,” if you could call it that, lasted all of nine days until Mary Tudor and her supporters marched into London, […]

This Day In History: July 9, 1795 On July 9, 1795, James Swan, an American businessman and Revolutionary patriot, liquidated the debt the U.S. government owed to the country of France, agreeing to pay the sum of $2,024,899 (about $28 million today). James Swan was a native of Fife, Scotland and emigrated to Boston, MA in 1765 at the age […]

This Day In History: July 8, 52 B.C.E. On July 8, 52 C.E., Julius Caesar conquered a small fishing village in Gaul (modern-day France) called Lutetia Parisiorum, which over the centuries would become one of the most elegant and influential cities in the world. If you could look at those two cities side-by-side now, they would have little in common […]

This Day In History: July 7, 1983 On July 7, 1983, an 11-year-old American girl from Manchester, Maine began a two-week tour of the Soviet Union at the invitation of Yuri Andropov after she wrote the Soviet leader a letter expressing concern about the possibility of a nuclear war. The winsome little girl gave the Soviets a rare look at […]

This Day In History: July 4, 1826 On July 4, 1826, two old friends, and adversaries, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died within five hours of one another, and the story goes that the messengers dispatched from the men’s homes to inform each of the other’s passing crossed on their somber journey. Jefferson and Adams were the last survivors from […]

This Day In History July 3, 1971 While most everyone else was singing about incense and peppermints and feeling groovy in the 1960s, there was one group that dared to explore the darker side of the human experience. Their leader – though he would bristle at being called such – was a poet, a clown, a genius, a drunk, and […]

This Day In History: July 2, 1937 Legendary pilot Amelia Earhart (also known as “Lady Lindy,”) thrilled the aviation-crazy public of the ‘20s and ‘30s with her ground breaking accomplishments. She was the first woman to fly over the Atlantic Ocean in 1928 (as a passenger, but went on to do the trip solo as well), and became the first […]

This Day In History: July 1, 1874 On July 1, 1874, a little four-year-old boy from Germantown, PA had the tragic distinction of being the first known kidnapping victim held for ransom in United States history. Two strange men coaxed him and his eight-year-old brother into their wagon with promises of candy. (This is thought by some etymologists to be […]

This Day In History: June 30, 1934 “If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people.” -Adolf Hitler, July 13, 1934 […]

This Day In History: June 27, 1829 On June 27, 1829, James Smithson died in Genoa, Italy at the age of 64 after a long illness. He wrote his will three years prior to his death, which contained a strange request. He left his sizable estate, totaling roughly half a million dollars (about $11 million today), to his nephew Henry […]

This Day In History: June 26, 1284 Although there are many variants of the Pied Piper story, the most familiar one is the fairy tale told by the Brothers Grimm. The basic story goes that the town of Hamelin is infested by rats, so they hire a rat catcher to come and take care of the problem. The guy’s a […]

This Day In History: June 25, 1967 Already riding high after the release of the groundbreaking “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” just weeks before, the biggest band in the world further solidified their status as larger-than-life pop culture icons on June 25, 1967. On that day, 300-400 million people around the globe watched and listened as the Beatles introduced […]

This Day In History: June 24, 1314 When the Scots met the English on the battlefield in 1314, they were heavily outnumbered, but after almost a decade of plundering and guerrilla warfare in Northern England, they were prepared to meet the enemy head-on. The Scots and the English had fought many, many times before, but this particular battle proved pivotal […]

This Day In History: June 23, 1933 On the night of June 23, 1993, a young wife, upset and shaking, got out of bed for a drink of water. While she was standing in her kitchen, her gaze fell on the counter and an 8-inch carving knife. Her thoughts were a random series of events from the past four years […]

This Day In History: June 20, 1900 As is often the case when a rebellion seemingly erupts out of nowhere, the impetus for the Boxer Rebellion in China had been brewing for quite some time. As the 19th century drew to a close, the Chinese were smarting from a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Japanese, a nation that […]

This Day In History: June 19, 1905 The first baby step toward red carpet galas and Brangelina was the introduction of the first nickelodeon theater on June 19, 1905 in Pittsburgh, PA. The nickelodeon, whose odd name was a combination of the five cent admission price and “odeon,” the Greek word for theater, became an instant smash. The idea began […]

This Day In History: June 18, 1967 The Summer of Love was ushered in by the Monterey International Pop Music Festival, a three-day event held June 16 through June 18 in Monterey, California at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. Monterey was the venue where The Who, Ravi Shankar and Jimi Hendrix all made their first major American appearances. The Festival was […]