This Day…

1916 – US Department of Interior forms National Park Service.

1850 – 1st US National Women’s Rights Convention convenes in Worcester, Massachusetts.

1895 – American frontier murderer and outlaw, John Wesley Hardin is shot and killed by John Selman Sr. in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.

1939“The Wizard of Oz” opens at Loews Capitol Theatre in NY

1926 – Gertrude Ederle became the first American woman to swim the English Channel. She was 19 years old at the time. The swim took her 14 1/2 hours.

1821 – “The Saturday Evening Post” was published for the first time as a weekly.

1832 – Battle of Bad Axe, Wisconsin: 1,300 Illinois militia defeat Sauk & Fox Native Americans ending the Black Hawk War in the US.

1914 – World War I officially began when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

1896 – Vitascope Hall, 1st permanent for-profit movie theatre, opens in New Orleans.

1893 – Katharine Lee Bates writes “America the Beautiful” in Colorado