1775 - The Second Continental Congress established a Committee of Secret Correspondence.
1862 - John Palmer and John Scholfield were promoted to major general for the Union army.
1864 - Confederate General John Bell Hood approached Franklin, Tennessee. The next day he attacked troops under John Scholfield. (Battle of Franklin, Tennessee)
1864 - The Sand Creek Massacre occurred in Colorado when a militia led by Colonel John Chivington, killed at least 400 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians who had surrendered and had been given permission to camp.
1942 - Americans received news from the Office of Price Administration (OPA) that coffee would be rationed.
1961 - The Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft was launched by the U.S. with Enos the chimp on board. The craft orbited the earth twice before landing off Puerto Rico.
1963 - U.S. President Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.
1967 - U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was leaving the Johnson administration to become president of the World Bank.
1971 - The U.S. 23rd Division (Americal) ceased combat operations and began its withdrawal from South Vietnam.
1975 - Bill Gates adopted the name Microsoft for the company he and Paul Allen had formed to write the BASIC computer language for the Altair.
1982 - In California, President Reagan addressed the convention of the National League of Cities.
1984 - President Reagan presented a special Congressional Gold Medal posthumously to late Representative Leo J. Ryan (R-California).
1988 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the rights of criminal defendants are not violated when police unintentionally fail to preserve potentially vital evidence.
1991 - Near Coalinga, CA, 17 people were killed in a traffic accident that involved 104 vehicles on Interstate 5. The accident occurred during a severe dust storm.
1999 - U.S. President Bill Clinton signed a $390 billion omnibus spending bill.