1620 – Construction began on the first permanent European settlement in New England, one week after the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Harbor in present-day Massachusetts.
1783 – Gen. George Washington resigned his commission with the U.S. Army and retired to Mount Vernon, Va. (He became the new nation’s first president in 1789.)
1788 – Maryland passed an act to cede a parcel of land for the seat of the national government, part of which later became the District of Columbia.
1913 – The U.S. Federal Reserve System was established.
1968 – Eighty-two crew members of the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo were released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured.
1986 – Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling.
