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17691776 Club

Portolá leads a party north from San Diego; Monterey Bay is the prize

Friar Juan Crespí and engineer Costansó ride along to map the coast as Spain moves to counter Russian traders pressing south.

By the summer of 1769, Spain had a problem: Russian fur traders were creeping down the Pacific coast, and Spanish California existed mostly on paper. On July 14, Gaspar de Portolá led a party north from San Diego, aiming to find Monterey Bay and plant a permanent Spanish claim there. Franciscan diarist Juan Crespí and engineer Miguel Costansó rode along to map the land and record what they saw. The expedition missed Monterey Bay entirely and, in early November 1769, stumbled onto something bigger: San Francisco Bay…

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More from July 14
1798

It is now a federal crime to publish "false or malicious" criticism of officials; Adams signs the Sedition Act

The last of four laws Congress has passed since June, the act caps a Federalist push to silence perceived French sympathizers working against the government.
1881

Garrett fires in the dark, and Billy the Kid is dead at twenty-one

The outlaw walks into Pete Maxwell's bedroom at Fort Sumner asking "¿Quién es?"; Garrett's first shot strikes just above the heart.
1943

Roosevelt signs a monument into existence for Carver; no Black American has been honored this way before

The site near Diamond, Missouri, where Carver was born into slavery, becomes the first national monument built to honor a private citizen.
20031776 Club
Two senior administration officials are the columnist's sources, eight days after Wilson accused the White House of twisting Iraq intelligence.
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More from Colonial America
1663

Charles II signs Rhode Island's charter; no colony has ever put religious liberty in writing like this

John Clarke, jailed in Massachusetts a dozen years ago for preaching Baptist, wins the argument: a colony can thrive without a state church.
1775

Congress cuts the cord to London's mail: Franklin named postmaster general

A line of posts is ordered from Falmouth to Savannah, and the emerging nation gets its own way to talk to itself.
1620

Mayflower sails for America; her companion ship is already taking on water

Speedwell's leak forces both ships into Dartmouth before they've cleared the English coast.
1590

White comes home to Roanoke and finds it empty; the houses are taken down

He lands on his granddaughter's third birthday and finds only a carved word where his colony used to be.
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