- 1644 – First Black legal protest occurred in America when eleven Black people petitioned for freedom in New Netherlands (New York). The Council of New Netherlands freed the eleven petitioners because they had “served the Company seventeen or eighteen years” and had been “long since promised their freedom on the same footing as other free people in New Netherlands.”
- 1805 – Sacagawea gives birth to a son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. He came with her two months later when she left with Lewis and Clark on their journey to the Pacific Ocean and back to the Louisiana Territory.
- 1840 – Jonathan Jasper Wright is born in Pennsylvania. He was a Black lawyer who was elected as a judge on the Supreme Court of South Carolina and served during Reconstruction.
- 1847 – Thomas Edison is born.
- 1916 – Emma Goldman, a crusader for women’s rights and social justice, is arrested for lecturing and distributing materials about birth control.
- 1958 – Ruth Carol Taylor, a journalist and nurse, became the first Black flight attendant in the United States when she joined Mohawk Airlines on this day.
- 1977 – Clifford Alexander, Jr. is confirmed as the first Black Secretary of the Army. He will hold the position until the end of President Jimmy Carter’s term.
- 1989 – Rev. Barbara Harris became the first woman bishop in the American Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion worldwide.
- 1990 – Nelson Mandela released from prison after TWENTY-SEVEN years.
- 2012 – Whitney Houston dies
