On July 10, 1832, U.S. President Andrew Jackson vetoed a bill to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States, in effect ending formal central banking in the United States until the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913.
Category: Today
A Declaration Read
On July 9, 1776, General George Washington had the Declaration of Independence read out to members of the Continental Army in Manhattan. Meanwhile, thousands of British troops on Staten Island prepared for the Battle of Long Island.
Ring the Bells
July 8, 1776 – Church bells (possibly including the Liberty Bell, pictured) were rung after John Nixon delivered the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.
Seventh of July
In 1456, a retrial verdict acquitted Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her execution.
In 1928 on July 7, sliced bread was sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.
On this date in 1958, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act into law.
July 6 serves better as a “Today in Tyranny” marker than anything positive, at least when you consider these events:
- 1415 – Jan Hus was burnt at the stake.
- 1535 – Sir Thomas More was executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England.
- 1887 – David Kalakaua, monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, was forced at gunpoint by Americans to sign the Bayonet Constitution giving Americans more power in Hawaii while stripping Hawaiian citizens of their rights.
- 1939 – The Nazi “Third Reich” closed the last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany.
July Fifth
The Liberty Bell left Philadelphia by special train on its way to the Panama – Pacific International Exposition, on July 5, 1915 — the last trip outside Philadelphia that the custodians of the bell intend to permit.
In 1937 on this date, Spam, the luncheon meat, was introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.
The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 years, was formally certified by President Richard Nixon on July 5, 1971.
On July 5, 1995, Armenia (flag, above) adopted its constitution, four years after the country’s independence from the Soviet Union.