1682
William Penn steps ashore at Philadelphia, a city that exists only on paper
He had landed at New Castle days earlier; now he comes to the ground he has already named for brotherly love.
1795Member story · 1776 Club
Spain opens the Mississippi; Pinckney wins a treaty Madrid didn't want to sign
The border lands at the 31st parallel, and New Orleans reopens to American cargo.
1904
A train leaves City Hall underground, and New York gets its subway
Mayor George McClellan takes the controls himself for the ceremonial run before paying riders board that evening for a nickel.
1961Member story · 1776 Club
A giant, untested rocket lifts off Pad 34; engineers gave it a 75 percent chance
SA-1 carried no crew and no real upper stages, only a plan to find out if the booster would hold together.
1962Member story · 1776 Club
A U-2 pilot is killed over Cuba; it is the only combat death of the missile crisis
Two Soviet generals in Havana order the shot that kills Major Rudolf Anderson on his sixth mission over the island.
1962
One officer says no, and a Soviet sub's nuclear torpedo stays in its tube
Depth-charged and nearly out of air near Cuba, B-59's crew thought the war had already started.