On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress passed a resolution that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”

In 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Washington railroad station; Garfield died the following September. (Guiteau was hanged in June 1882.)

In 1937, aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight along the equator.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law a sweeping civil rights bill that had been passed by Congress prohibiting discrimination and segregation based on race, color, sex, religion or national origin.

In 1986, ruling in a pair of cases, the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action as a remedy for past job discrimination.