Backed by trumpeter Harry James, American singer Frank Sinatra recorded his first single

Medal of Honor created

Aaron Burr slays Alexander Hamilton in duel

The United States Patent Office issues the Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin a patent for his three-point automobile safety belt “for use in vehicles, especially road vehicles”

Florence Blanchfield is appointed to lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, making her the first woman in U.S. history to hold permanent military rank

Liberty Bell tolls to announce Declaration of Independence

Building of Hoover Dam begins

Althea Gibson is first African American to win Wimbledon

Dolly the sheep becomes first successfully cloned mammal

Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence

George Washington takes command of Continental Army

President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act

The Battle of Gettysburg begins

Jean Francois Gravelet, a Frenchman known professionally as Charles Blondin, becomes the first daredevil to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope

The American space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir to form the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth

Bald Eagle removed from list of threatened species

English scientist James Smithson establishes the Smithsonian Institution

U.S. Congress approves the Federal Highway Act

Native American forces led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of the Little Bighorn

The first modern sighting of UFOs