On July 9, 1540, England’s King Henry VIII had his 6-month-old marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, annulled.
In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read aloud to Gen. George Washington’s troops in New York.
In 1877, the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club begins its first lawn tennis tournament at Wimbledon, then an outer-suburb of London.
In 1918, the Distinguished Service Cross was established by Congress.
In 1937, a fire at 20th Century Fox’s film storage facility destroyed most of the studio’s silent films.
In 1943, during World War II, the Allies launched the invasion of Sicily.
In 1947, the engagement of Britain’s Princess Elizabeth to Lt. Philip Mountbatten was announced. Also in 1947, In a ceremony held at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, General Dwight D. Eisenhower appoints Florence Blanchfield to be a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, making her the first woman in U.S. history to hold permanent military rank.
In 1962, Bob Dylan records “Blowing In The Wind”. “This here ain’t no protest song or anything like that, ’cause I don’t write no protest songs.” That was how Bob Dylan introduced one of the most eloquent protest songs ever written when he first performed it publicly.
In 2015, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley relegated the Confederate flag to the state’s “relic room” after the legislature passed a measure removing the flag from the grounds of the Statehouse.