This Day…

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

1879 – Doc Holliday kills for the first time after a man shoots up his New Mexico saloon.

1876 – Baseball’s first official no-hitter: George Bradley of the St Louis Brown Stockings no-hits the Hartford Dark Blues, 2-0.

1923 – The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles. It originally reads “Hollywoodland” but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.

1957US Surgeon General Leroy Burney connects smoking with lung cancer