On July 8th...

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1497 Vasco da Gama set sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on what would become the first sea voyage from Europe to India.

1623 Pope Gregory XV died.

1663 King Charles II of England granted a charter to Rhode Island.

1693 New York City authorized the first police uniforms in the American colonies.

1695 Physicist Christiaan Huygens died.

1721 Businessman Elihu Yale died.

1776 Colonel John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Decaration of Independence, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1777 Vermont became the first U.S. state to outlaw slavery.

1796 The U. S. State Department issued the first U.S. passport.

1800 Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse gave the first cowpox vaccination to his son to prevent smallpox.

1822 Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley died.

1835 The Liberty Bell cracked.

1838 Businessman Eli Lilly was born.
1838 Ferdinand von Zeppelin, inventor of the rigid dirigible, was born.

1839 Businessman John D. Rockefeller was born.

1843 "Wild West" figure Virgil Earp was born.

1853 Commodore Matthew C. Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay.

1856 Charles E. Barnes patented the machine gun.

1858 The Sepoy Rebellion in India officially ended.

1862 Odore R. Timby patented the revolving gun turret.

1870 The U. S. Congress authorized the registration of trademarks.

1885 John R. Brinkley, "the goat gland doctor," was born.

1889 The first issue of Wall Street Journal was published.

1892 The American Psychological Association was organized in Worcester, Masschusetts.

1896 William Jennings Bryan gave his "Cross of Gold" speech before the Democratic National Convention.

1898 Skagway, Alaska, crime boss Soapy Smith was shot to death.
1898 Author Alec Waugh was born.

1900 Composer George Antheil was born.

1907 Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first `Follies' on a New York City, New York, theater roof.

1908 Nelson Rockefeller, American businessman and politician, was born.

1923 Warren Harding became the first sitting President to visit Alaska.

1931 Roone Arledge, creator of Wide World of Sports, was born.

1932 Singer Jerry Vale was born.

1933 The U. S. Public Works Administration went into effect.
1933 Comedian Marty Feldman was born.

1935 Singer Steve Lawrence was born.

1942 U. S. Senator Phil Gramm was born.

1947 Actress Kim Darby was born.

1950 General Douglas MacArthur was named Commander-In-Chief of United Nations forces in Korea.

1951 Actress Anjelica Huston was born.

1958 Actor Kevin Bacon was born.

1961 Singer Toby Keith was born.

1963 The United States banned all financial transactions with Cuba.

1967 The American Independent Party was organized in Bakersfield, California.
1967 Actress Vivien Leigh died.

1979 Voyager 2 took the first ever photo of Jupiter's satellite Adrastea.

1986 U. S. Admiral Hyman Rickover died.

1994 Actor Dick Sargent died.
1994 North Korean leader Kim Il Sung died.

1999 Astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr., died.

2011 Space Shuttle Atlantis was launched in the final mission of the U. S. Space Shuttle program.
2011 Betty Ford, widow of U. S. President Gerald Ford, died.

2012 Actor Ernest Borgnine died.

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This page was last updated on October 30, 2018.