Birth of the U.S. Marine Corps

In a decision that would eventually make them one of the wealthiest surviving Native American nations, the Osage tribe agrees to abandon their lands in Missouri and Arkansas in exchange for a reservation in Oklahoma. The Osage were the largest tribe of the Southern Sioux people occupying what would later become the states of Missouri, […]

The patent office awards U.S. Patent No. 743,801 to a Birmingham, Alabama woman named Mary Anderson for her “window cleaning device for electric cars and other vehicles to remove snow, ice or sleet from the window.” When she received her patent, Anderson tried to sell it to a Canadian manufacturing firm, but the company refused: […]

“Sesame Street,” a pioneering TV show that would teach generations of young children the alphabet and how to count, makes its broadcast debut.

On November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks in Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew members on board. It was the worst single accident in Lake Superior’s history. The ship weighed more than 13,000 tons and was 730 feet long. It was launched in 1958 as the biggest carrier in the Great Lakes and […]

Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian playwright and environmental activist, is hanged in Nigeria along with eight other activists from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop). Saro-Wiwa, an outspoken critic of Nigeria’s military regime, was charged by the government with the 1994 murder of four pro-military traditional leaders. He maintained his innocence, claiming […]