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19151776 Club

Bryan quits the cabinet; he will not sign Wilson's ultimatum to Germany over the Lusitania

The Secretary of State calls the stern note to Berlin a step toward war, arguing the Allied blockade is no less an offense than the U-boat that killed 1,197.

By the summer of 1915, the war in Europe had already fractured Woodrow Wilson's cabinet. On June 8, 1915, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan delivered his letter of resignation to President Wilson — unable to support the increasingly combative note Wilson intended to send Germany after a U-boat torpedoed RMS Lusitania on May 7, killing 1,197 passengers, including 128 Americans. Bryan had argued that the Allied naval blockade of Germany was as morally offensive as German submarine warfare, and that Americans who boarded British vessels in a war zone "assume[d] unnecessary risks" that should not entangle their country. Wilson, advised by Counselor Robert Lansing, held Germany strictly accountable; Bryan refused to sign on, and walked out. Lansing replaced him…

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More from June 9
1772

Providence men row out at night and burn HMS Gaspee to the waterline

Eighteen boatloads led by Abraham Whipple and merchant John Brown board the grounded revenue schooner in Narragansett Bay; Lieutenant Duddingston is shot and wounded.
1863

Pleasonton crosses the Rappahannock at dawn; Stuart's cavalry fights all day to hold Fleetwood Hill

Eleven thousand Union horsemen hit the Confederate camps from two directions at once, and though the Federals withdraw by nightfall, the aura of easy Southern dominance on horseback does not survive the day.
1968

Kennedy is dead; Johnson declares a national day of mourning

Shot in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen nearly 25 hours ago, the California primary winner dies at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles.
17321776 Club
Three years after watching his friend die in Fleet Prison, Oglethorpe and his partners secure the Province of Georgia as a haven for the "worthy poor" and a military buffer to the south.
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More from Gilded Age & Progressive Era
1879

Edison's thread-filament bulb glows for thirteen and a half hours before it dies

A length of carbonized cotton thread, sealed in glass, outlasts every filament Edison had tried before it.
1900

Washington says it will buy the Danish West Indies for $7 million

The second American attempt in three decades to take the islands, this time with the Caribbean suddenly a strategic priority.
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.
1886

Rain and fog over the harbor; Cleveland unveils Liberty before 2,000 shivering guests

A two-decade French gift reaches New York, and the torch is lit for the first time.
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