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American history, reported as it happened
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The events of July 1 · Read the full edition → · More from July 1 →
19481776 Club

New York's answer to LaGuardia takes flight; first commercial plane lifts off from Idlewild

Truman and Dewey share the ribbon at a 1,000-acre airport carved from Jamaica Bay marshland and a former golf course.

LaGuardia Field had been overwhelmed since the day it opened in 1939, and New York needed a bigger answer. On July 1, 1948, the first commercial flight departed New York International Airport — built on 1,000 acres of former marshland and the old Idlewild Golf Course along Jamaica Bay — with President Harry S. Truman and Governor Thomas E. Dewey both on hand for the opening ceremony. Within six years, more international passengers moved through Idlewild than through any other airport on earth…

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More from July 1
1863

Hill's men march on Gettysburg for supplies; Buford's cavalry is waiting on the ridges

Trading ridge for ridge all morning, Union troopers hold long enough for infantry to arrive; Hancock picks Cemetery Hill as the ground to stand on.
1946

Blandy detonates the bomb over Bikini; the target fleet survives, and the Navy claims vindication

Test Able misses its aim point by 2,130 feet, scattering results that disappoint the Navy's critics but settle nothing about the weapon's power at sea.
1898

Roosevelt and the Buffalo Soldiers take Kettle Hill; San Juan Heights fall to the Fifth Corps

Outnumbered 16-to-1, Spanish defenders under Linares y Pombo inflict punishing losses before the heights are carried and the road to Santiago opens.
19631776 Club
The Zone Improvement Plan assigns a unique ZIP code to each address nationwide, with the first digit narrowing a region and each that follows pointing closer to a single post office.
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More from Cold War America
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.
1964

Senate breaks the longest filibuster in its history; civil rights vote is cleared

Robert Byrd's 14-hour, 13-minute speech closes 72 days of Southern obstruction, and cloture passes 71 to 29.
1966

Warren's court rules 5–4: police must tell suspects they may stay silent before questioning begins

Ernesto Miranda's kidnapping conviction falls; he had signed a "voluntary" confession without ever being told he could refuse to speak or call a lawyer.
1967

Thurgood Marshall takes the oath; the Supreme Court has its first Black justice

The Senate confirmed Marshall 69–11 on August 30, brushing aside sustained Southern objections; he is sworn in today, October 2.
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