- 1787 – New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the Constitution.
- 1865 – Secretary of State William Seward proclaims the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery throughout the United States.
- 1915 – President Woodrow Wilson, whose first wife died a year earlier, married Edith Bolling Galt.
- 1917 – The resolution containing the language of the Eighteenth Amendment to enact Prohibition is passed by Congress.
- 1972 – Following the collapse of peace talks with North Vietnam, President Richard Nixon announced the beginning of Operation Linebacker II, a “maximum effort” bombing campaign.
- 2010 – Congress voted to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibited openly gay men and women from serving in the military.
