This Week In American History

August 6 1928 Andy Warhol, one of the most influential artists of the latter part of the 20th century, was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A frail and diminutive...

July 30 1945 The USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sunk within minutes in shark infested waters. Only 316 of the 1,196 men on board survived. However,...

July 23 1885 Just after completing his memoirs, Civil War hero and former president Ulysses S. Grant dies of throat cancer. As supreme commander of Union forces, Grant led troops in a...

July 16 1790 The young American Congress declared that a swampy, humid, muddy and mosquito-infested site on the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia will be the nation's permanent capital....

July 9 1944 US troops secured Saipan after three weeks of fighting during the Battle of Saipan. Known as the Pacific D-Day, the battle was launched nine days after Operation...

Every 4th of July the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is tapped (not actually rung) thirteen times by descendants of the Declaration signees in honor of the original thirteen colonies.  Americans...

July 2  1937 The Lockheed aircraft carrying American aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Frederick Noonan was reported missing near Howland Island in the Pacific. The pair were attempting to fly around...

June 25 1876 Native American forces led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeated the U.S. Army troops of General George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of the Little Bighorn near southern Montana’s...

June 18 1812 The day after the Senate followed the House of Representatives in voting to declare war against Great Britain, President James Madison signed the declaration into law—and the War...

When the American Revolution broke out in 1775, the colonists weren’t fighting united under a single flag. Instead, most regiments participating in the war for independence against the British fought under...

June 11 1949 Hank Williams made his debut on the Grand Ole Opry. The then-25-year-old performed "Lovesick Blues," his first No.1 hit, as well as his self-penned single "Mind Your...

On May 19, 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S President Franklin Roosevelt set the initial date for the cross-Channel landing that would become D-Day—May 1, 1944. At this...