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Made for the 250thOn this day › June 26
What happened on June 26 in American history
June 26 is the 177th day of the year (the 178th in leap years). Patriot Compass has published 20 stories from June 26 spanning 1740 to 2024. Among them: in 1740, Salgado and Menéndez storm Fort Mose before dawn; 75 of Palmer's men are dead, 34 taken; and in 1917, Pershing's men step off the transports onto French soil; the Doughboys have arrived.
1740Member story · 1776 Club
Salgado and Menéndez storm Fort Mose before dawn; 75 of Palmer's men are dead, 34 taken
Spanish regulars, free black militia, and Seminole warriors hit the 170-man British garrison two hours before it stirred, wrecking Oglethorpe's drive on St. Augustine.
1917Member story · 1776 Club
Pershing's men step off the transports onto French soil; the Doughboys have arrived
The U.S. Army must still be built nearly from scratch, and today's landing is more symbol than fighting force.
1918Member story · 1776 Club
Shearer wires four words: "Woods now U.S. Marine Corps entirely"
After 26 days of bayonets and close-quarters fighting through shattered timber, the Marines hold Belleau Wood and the German advance on Paris is stopped.
1924Member story · 1776 Club
U.S. Marines leave Santo Domingo; eight years of occupation end with Vásquez Lajara in office
Rear Admiral Caperton's 1916 landing to manage a debt crisis outlasted three Dominican governments; policing authority now passes to the National Guard.
1934Member story · 1776 Club
Roosevelt signs a national framework for nonprofit lending cooperatives into law
Four years into the Depression, with banks collapsed and loan sharks filling the gap, the Federal Credit Union Act opens cooperative credit to any American community.
1942Member story · 1776 Club
Grumman's new carrier fighter lifts off; the XF6F-1 is built to beat the Zero
The Hellcat prototype takes its first flight today, designed around combat reports from Pacific pilots who found the F4F Wildcat outmatched.
1945
50 nations sign the United Nations Charter in San Francisco
China signs first, as the nation that bore Axis aggression longest; delegates from all 50 Allied powers file through the Herbst Theatre to add their names.
1948
Clay orders supply flights into Tempelhof; the question now is whether the air can feed two million
Stalin sealed every land route into West Berlin days ago, betting the Allies would negotiate their way out rather than try to sustain a city from the sky.
1948Member story · 1776 Club
The New Yorker prints Jackson's 'The Lottery'; the mailroom fills with fury
More than 300 letters pour in after Harold Ross runs the story of a village that stones one of its own, and Jackson says only thirteen of them are kind.
1948Member story · 1776 Club
Shockley files the patent for a transistor built in three days; no filament, no glow, no tube
The Bell Labs physicist's "sandwich" of doped semiconductor layers can amplify electrical signals in a package far smaller and sturdier than any vacuum tube.
1963Member story · 1776 Club
Kennedy tells 120,000 West Berliners: 'Ich bin ein Berliner'
Speaking from Rathaus Schöneberg, he sets aside his prepared remarks; his own National Security Advisor thinks he may have gone too far.
1974Member story · 1776 Club
A pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit crosses an NCR scanner in Troy, Ohio; the register reads 67 cents
At 8:01 a.m. at the Marsh supermarket, a cashier rings up the first Universal Product Code ever scanned at a retail checkout.
1975Member story · 1776 Club
Two FBI agents die in a firefight at Pine Ridge; an AIM member is also killed in the same exchange
Agents Coler and Williams drove onto the Jumping Bull Ranch on an assault case and stumbled into a gunfight; at least 125 rounds fired before it was over.
1977Member story · 1776 Club
Elvis closes the show in Indianapolis; no one in the hall knows it is his last
A sold-out Market Square Arena sees a visibly diminished Presley work through the set with an intensity witnesses will carry with them for years.
1997Member story · 1776 Club
Supreme Court strikes down the Communications Decency Act; vague terms doomed the law
In Reno v. ACLU, all nine justices agree: Congress may not impose criminal penalties on undefined "indecent" online speech under the First Amendment.
2003Member story · 1776 Club
Supreme Court strikes down sodomy laws; Kennedy writes that intimate, consensual conduct is a liberty the Constitution protects
The 6–3 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas voids statutes in 14 states and explicitly reverses the Court's own 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick.
2012Member story · 1776 Club
Waldo Canyon fire levels 346 homes in twelve hours; two found dead in Mountain Shadows
William Everett, 74, and his wife Barbara, 73, are among the dead as 32,000 Colorado Springs residents flee evacuation orders.
2013Member story · 1776 Club
Kennedy writes for a 5-4 court: DOMA's federal marriage ban violates the Constitution
Edith Windsor, who owed $363,053 in estate taxes a heterosexual widow would not have paid, wins; federal benefits open at once to legally married same-sex couples.
2015
Supreme Court rules 5-4: every state must license and recognize same-sex marriage
Kennedy's majority finds the Fourteenth Amendment settles the question; the ruling consolidates six cases from four states and reaches all 50 states and U.S. territories.
2024Member story · 1776 Club
Assange pleads guilty in Saipan, sentenced to time served; he lands in Canberra a free man
The WikiLeaks founder admits to one Espionage Act count before Judge Manglona, ending fourteen years of extradition battles that ran from the Ecuadorian Embassy to Belmarsh Prison.
Read the full June 26 edition →
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