On August 4, 1790, under the leadership of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Congress authorized the construction of ten cutters to enforce federal tariff and trade laws and to prevent smuggling. Initially called the Revenue Marine, today we better know it as the…
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On August 3, 1949, a meeting in New York City changed the course of American sports history. Officials from the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL), two rival professional basketball circuits, agreed to a merger that would create the…
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On August 2, 1939, just weeks before the outbreak of World War II, physicist Albert Einstein and fellow Hungarian émigré Leo Szilard co-signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that would become one of the most consequential pieces of correspondence in history. The…
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On August 2, 1923, the United States suddenly had a new president. The 29th President of the United States, Warren G. Harding’s unexpected death brought an abrupt end to his term in office and left a profound impact on the nation. Harding’s tenure as…
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On August 2, 1790, the United States of America took its first count of the population. The U.S. Constitution ratified in 1789, mandated that a census be conducted to enumerate the people to apportion seats in the House of Representatives and assess direct taxes…
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On August 1, 1800, the Acts of Union were passed by the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland, legally binding the two into a single political entity: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The union, which took effect on January 1, 1801,…
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On August 1, 30 BC, a defining moment in ancient history unfolded as Octavian, the future Augustus Caesar, conquered the city of Alexandria. This conquest marked the culmination of a power struggle that would reshape the Roman Empire and influence the course of Western…
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August 1, 1944, saw one of the largest urban uprisings of World War II. Since the beginning of the war and the joint Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, the Polish government had existed in exile in London. By the summer of 1944, with…
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On July 31, 1790, the fledgling United States took a decisive step toward promoting innovation and industrial progress: it issued its first patent. The recipient was Samuel Hopkins of Philadelphia, who secured legal recognition for a novel process of making potash—an essential ingredient in…
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The history of the lunar rover, an extraordinary feat of engineering, began with its debut on the moon on July 31, 1971, during the Apollo 15 mission. The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), also known simply as the lunar rover, was a crucial development for…
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