Other Years:

• 1562 – The first French colonists in North America, led by Jean Ribault, arrived in Florida.
• 1682 – French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle a four-day stay with the Tensas Indians on Lake Saint Joseph in Louisiana and signed a peace treaty with them.
• 1803 – The U.S. signed the the Louisiana Purchase Treaty and doubled the size of U.S. territory in exchange for $15 million.
• 1812 – Louisiana became the 18th U.S. state.
• 1860 – Manuelito and 1000 Navaho warriors attacked Fort Defiance in Northwestern Arizona which had been built on Navaho grazing land. During the day long fight the Navaho captured a few out buildings before the cavalrymen regrouped and drove them back.  
• 1864 – Confederates fought in waist deep water at the Battle of Jenkins Ferry, Arkansas to drive federal General Frederick Steele’s invaders across the flooded Saline River and back to Little Rock. 
• 1871 – White and Mexican settlers attacked Chief Eskiminzin’s Aravaipa Apache camp in response to raids near Tucson in what became known as the “Camp Grant Massacre” in Arizona Territory. More than 140 were killed.

Other Years:

• 1862 – Federal troops under Admiral David Farragut occupied New Orleans, Louisiana.
• 1967 – Muhammad Ali (formerly known as Cassius Clay) was stripped of his world boxing title after refusing to submit to the U.S. military draft.
• 1974 – U.S. President Richard Nixon announced the release of edited transcripts of White House tape recordings relating to the Watergate scandal.
• 1975 – In Operation Frequent Wind, the U.S. evacuated U.S. citizens from Saigon before an expected North Vietnamese takeover.

Other Years:

• 1635 – Virginia colony Governor John Harvey was accused of treason and removed from office.
• 1862 – Forts Jackson and St. Phillip on the Mississippi river surrendered to federal troops.
• 1871 – In response to raids near Tucson, William Oury embarked, leading 140 armed white and Mexican settlers for the Apache village near Camp Grant, Arizona.
• 1882 – Remnants of Chiricuhua Chief Loco’s Apache were routed by Troops of the 6th U.S. Cavalry, and a company of Indian scouts south of Cloverdale, Arizona. The surviving Indians fled to Mexico. 
• 1924 – One Hundred Nineteen were killed in a Benwood, West Virginia coal mine disaster.
• 2012 – One was killed and 110 injured in a tent collapse in St Louis, Missouri.

Other Years:

• 1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh dispatched an expedition led by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe to explore the eastern coast of North America. 
• 1861 – Virginia invited the Confederate States’ government to establish Richmond as their capital. 
• 1861 – Colonel Thomas J. Jackson was assigned to command at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.
• 1861 – West Virginia illegally began an attempt to secede from Virginia after Virginia seceded from the Union.
• 1942 – A massive tornado destroyed Pryor, Oklahoma, killing more than 100 and injuring more than 300 people.
• 1978 – A cooling-tower collapse in a coal-fired power plant at Willow Island, West Virginia, killed 51 workers.

Other Years:

• 1607 – British colonists landed at Cape Henry, Virginia.
• 1865- Boston Corbett, a yankee cavalry sergeant, killed John Wilkes Booth at Garrett’s barn outside Port Royal, Virginia.
• 1865 – Confederate General Joseph E. Johnson surrendered the Army of Tennessee at Durham Station, North Carolina.