This Week In American History

September 22 1862 President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which set a date for the freedom of more than 3 million enslaved in the United States and recast...

September 15    1950 U.S. Marines landed at Inchon on the west coast of Korea. The location had been criticized as too risky, but U.N. Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur insisted on...

September 8 1965 Iconic series "Star Trek" premiered on NBC. The show lasted for three seasons and followed the crew of the starship USS Enterprise as it completed its missions...

September 1 1972 In what’s billed as the “Match of the Century,” American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer defeats Russian Boris Spassky during the World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland. In the...

August 25 1916 The National Park Service was established as part of the Department of the Interior when the National Park Service Organic Act was signed by Woodrow Wilson. The National...

August 18 1590 John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returned from a supply-trip to England to find the settlement deserted. White and his men...

August 11 1934 A group of federal prisoners classified as “most dangerous” arrives at Alcatraz Island, a 22-acre rocky outcrop situated 1.5 miles offshore in San Francisco Bay. The convicts—the first civilian...

August 4 1753 George Washington, a young Virginia planter, became a Master Mason, the highest basic rank in the secret fraternity of Freemasonry. The ceremony was held at the Masonic...

July 28 1868 Following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states, the 14th Amendment, granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including formerly enslaved people—was...

July 21 1861 In the first major battle of the Civil War, Confederate forces defeated the Union Army along Bull Run near Manassas Junction, Virginia. The battle became known as Manassas by...

July 14 1951 The George Washington Carver National Monument in Joplin, Missouri was founded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who donated $30,000 to the monument. It was the first national monument...

July 7 1930 Construction of the Hoover Dam began. Over the next five years, a total of 21,000 men would work ceaselessly to produce what would be the largest dam...