This Week In American History

June 16 1884 The first roller coaster in American opened at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York. Known as a Switchback Railway, it traveled six miles per hour and cost...

June 9 1772 In an incident regarded as the first naval engagement of the American Revolution John Brown, an American merchant angered by high British taxes on his goods, and other...

June 2    1886 President Grover Cleveland became the first sitting president to marry in the White House when he married Frances Folsom, a young woman 27 years his junior....

May 26 1927 Henry Ford and his son Edsel drove the 15 millionth Model T Ford out of their factory, marking the famous automobile’s official last day of production. Introduced in...

May 19 1883 William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody opened Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in Omaha, Nebraska. His partner that first season was a dentist and exhibition shooter, Dr. W.F....

May 12 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt’s trip to San Francisco was captured on moving-picture film, making him one of the first presidents to have an official activity recorded in that...

May 5 1848 House Speaker Robert Winthrop of Massachusetts signed a resolution bestowing a third Congressional Gold Medal on Army Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor. Taylor’s three medals were awarded within...

April 28 1941 The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that under the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act, African Americans were entitled to equal passenger accommodations on the nation’s railroads. Rep. Arthur...

April 21    1836 During the Texan War for Independence, the Texas militia under Sam Houston launched a surprise attack against the forces of Mexican General Santa Anna along the...

April 14 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to...

April 7 1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower coined one of the most famous Cold War phrases when he suggested the fall of French Indochina to the communists could create a...

March 31 1931 Brilliant Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne (43) and seven others were killed when the wings of their plane broke apart while en route from Kansas City...