1776: US Congress proclaims the Declaration of Independence and independence from Great Britain

1785: Geologist James Hutton publicly reads an abstract of his theory of uniformitarianism for the first time at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

1803: The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people by President Thomas Jefferson

1838: Huskar Pit Disaster: 26 children drown while trying to escape flooding in the Silkstone Colliery in England. Leads to the 1842 Mines Act, which bans women and children from working underground. [1]

1934: Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb

2017: North Korea test-fires its first successful intercontinental ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan

2025: US President Donald Trump signs his ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ into law, narrowly passed by Senate, 51-50, and by House of Representatives, 218-214; five Republicans joined all Democrats in opposition

Source: Onthisday.com