Today in history

1788 Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution and became the 10th state of the United States.

1864 Union troops surrounding Petersburg, VA, began building a mine tunnel underneath the Confederate lines.

1867 Lucien B. Smith patented the first barbed wire. 1868 The U.S. Congress enacted legislation granting an eight-hour day to workers employed by the Federal government.

1868 Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina were readmitted to the Union. 1876 Lt. Col. Custer and the 210 men of U.S. 7th Cavalry were killed by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn in Montana. The event is known as “Custer’s Last Stand.”

1876 In Philadelphia, PA, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone for Sir William Thomson (Baron Kelvin) and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil at the Centennial Exhibition.

1910 The U.S. Congress authorized the use of postal savings stamps.

1917 The first American fighting troops landed in France. 1951 In New York, the first regular commercial color TV transmissions were presented on CBS using the FCC-approved CBS Color System. The public did not own color TV’s at the time.

1964 U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered 200 naval personnel to Mississippi to assist in finding three missing civil rights workers.

1968 Bobby Bonds (San Francisco Giants) hit a grandslam home run in his first game with the Giants. He was the first player to debut with a grand-slam. 1970 The U.S. Federal Communications Commission handed down a ruling (35 FR 7732), making it illegal for radio stations to put telephone calls on the air without the permission of the person being called. 1973 White House Counsel John Dean admitted that U.S. President Nixon took part in the Watergate cover-up.