• 1848 – Mexico ratified the treaty giving the U.S. ownership of New Mexico, California, parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado in return for $15 million.
• 1854 – The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise and set off the Kansas-Missouri border war.
• 1934 – The U.S. Congress established the Everglades National Park in Florida.
• 1965 – Vivian Malone became the first black student to graduate from the University of Alabama.

• 1677 – The Pamunkey, Roanoke, Nottaway and Nansemond Tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy signed the Treaty of Middle Plantation establishing peace with the English settlers in Virginia colony.
• 1721 – South Carolina was formally incorporated as a royal colony.
• 1765 – Patrick Henry denounced the Stamp Act before Virginia‘s House of Burgesses.
• 1787 – The “Virginia Plan” was proposed to the U.S. Constitutional Convention.
• 1988 – NBC aired “To Heal A Nation,” the story of Marylander,  Jan Scruggs’ effort to build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Other Years:

• 1774 – The first Continental Congress convened in Virginia.
• 1818 – Confederate General P. G.T. Beauregard was born at the “Contreras” sugar-cane plantation in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.
• 1888 – World-class Indian athlete Jim Thorpe was born in a one-room cabin near Prague in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.
• 1971 – Audie Leon Murphy, the most decorated American soldier of WWII died at the age of 46 in a plane crash at Brush Mountain, Virginia.
• 1984 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan led a state funeral for an unidentified American soldier killed in the Vietnam War.  The remains were subsequently placed in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. There is a high probability that this soldier is a Southerner.
• 1977 – One hundred sixty-five people died in a fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky.
• 1996 – U.S. President Bill Clinton’s former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, James McDougal and Susan McDougal, and Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, were convicted of fraud.

• 1607 – Virginia settles fought their first significant battle against Indians of the Powhattan Confederation.
• 1864 – The Battle of Pickett’s Mill, Georgia.
• 1896 – The Great St. Louis tornado killed more than 1000 people in and around St. Louis, Missouri.
• 1926 – Bronze statues of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were erected in Hannibal, Missouri.
• 1935 – The U.S. Supreme Court declared that President Franklin Roosevelt’s National Industrial Recovery Act was unconstitutional. 
• 1969 – Construction of Walt Disney World began outside Orlando, Florida.
• 1986 – Mel Fisher recovered a jar that contained 2,300 emeralds from the Spanish ship Atocha that sank off the Florida coast in the 17th century
• 1995 – In Culpeper, Virginia, “Superman” actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed from the neck down after a fall from his horse in a riding competition.
• 1997 – The Supreme Court ruled that the sexual harassment suit filed by Paula Jones could continue while U.S. President Bill Clinton was in office.
•  1998 – Michael Fortier was sentenced to 12 years prison for not warning anyone about the Oklahoma City bombing plot.

• 1540 – The “Lady of Cofitachequi,” held hostage by the Spanish Conquistador Hernando de Soto’s expedition, escaped Spanish custody with a large quantity of the pearls that de Soto’s men took from her village.
• 1835 – A resolution was passed in Congress stating that Congress had no authority over state slavery laws.
• 1865 – Confederate General Simon B. Buckner surrendered the Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi Department. 
• 1868 – The Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ended with his acquittal as the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction on all charges.
• 1938 – The House Committee on Un-American Activities began searching for subversives in the United States.
• 1961 – The Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee was established in Atlanta.
• 1984 – Tulsa Oklahoma got 13″ of rain in 24 hours, 14 people died in the flooding.