1631 – British clergyman Roger Williams, who founded the colony of Rhode Island, arrived in Salem, Mass., seeking religious freedom.
1778 – South Carolina becomes the second state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
1917 – Congress passes the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. The legislation imposed literacy tests on immigrants and barred immigration from the Asia-Pacific zone.
1945 – American troops led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur returned to Manila, liberating the Philippine capital from Japanese authority.
1958 – A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.
1994 – White supremacist Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of the 1963 killing of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
