1863 - The U.S. Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, PA, ended after three days. It was a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated.

1890 - Idaho became the 43rd state to join the United States of America.

1898 - During the Spanish American War, a fleet of Spanish ships in Cuba's Santiago Harbor attempted to run a blockade of U.S. naval forces. Nearly all of the Spanish ships were destroyed in the battle that followed.

1901 - The Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy, committed its last American robbery near Wagner, MT. They took $65,000 from a Great Northern train.

1930 - The U.S. Congress created the U.S. Veterans Administration.

1939 - Chic Young’s comic strip character, "Blondie" was first heard on CBS radio.

1945 - The first civilian passenger car built since February 1942 was driven off the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company plant in Detroit, MI. Production had been diverted due to World War II. 

1962 - Jackie Robinson became the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

1976 - 103 hostages were rescued by an Israeli commando unit at the raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda. The hostages had been taken from an Air France jetliner.

1981 - The Associated Press ran its first story about two rare illnesses afflicting homosexual men. One of the diseases was later named AIDS.

1986 - Mikhail Baryshnikov became a U.S. citizen at Ellis Island, New York Harbor.

1991 - U.S. President George Bush formally inaugurated the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.<!20>