- 597 BC – Babylonians capture Jerusalem, replace Jehoiachin with Zedekiah as king.
- 1751 – James Madison is born.
- 1802 – President Thomas Jefferson signs the Military Peace Establishment Act establishing the Army Corps of Engineers and the United States Military Academy known as West Point.
- 1827 – Editors Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm publish the first issue of Freedom’s Journal in New York City. The newspaper is the first in the United States owned and operated by African Americans.
- 1846 – Rebecca Cole is born. She was a physician, organization founder and social reformer, the second African-American woman to become a doctor in the United States.
- 1850 – Nathaniel Hawthorn’s The Scarlet Letter, is published.
- 1900 – Eveline Burns is born. An economist and technical expert and an immigrant to the U.S., she helped design social security and wrote “The American Social Security System,” the standard text in this field.
- 1926 – The first liquid-fueled rocket is launched in Massachusetts, traveling for 2.5 seconds and reaching an altitude of 41 feet.
- 1968 – As many as 500 Vietnamese villagers killed by U.S. soldiers in My Lai Massacre.
