1507-04-25 German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller first to use the name America on his world map "Universalis Cosmographia"
1619-08-20 1st known African Americans in English North America (approx. 20) land at Point Comfort (Fort Monroe), Virginia. They are then sold or traded into servitude.
1620-12-11 Myles Standish and a group of 18 settlers are attacked by 30 Native Americans, which became known as the "First Encounter"
1636-12-13 The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This organization is recognized today as the founding of the United States National Guard.
1754-05-09 1st newspaper cartoon in America-divided snake "Join or Die"
1771-05-16 The Battle of Alamance, a pre-American Revolutionary War battle between local militia and a group of rebels called "The Regulators", occurs in present-day Alamance County, North Carolina.
1773-10-14 American Revolutionary War: The United Kingdom's East India Company tea ships' cargo are burned at Annapolis, Maryland.
1773-11-05 John Hancock is elected as moderator at a Boston town meeting that resolves that anyone who supports the Tea Act is an "Enemy to America"
1774-10-21 First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
1835-09-14 American leading transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (33) marries 2nd wife Lydia (Lidian) Jackson in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
1924-03-19 American poet e.e. (Edward Estlin) Cummings marries first wife Elaine Orr. The marriage lasts less than 9 months.
1924-06-24 American writer Henry Miller (31) marries 2nd wife June Smerth (21) in Hoboken, New Jersey.
1996-02-14 Secretary of Defense and former US Senator William Cohen of Maine (56) weds Black Entertainment Television host Janet Langhart (54) at United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
1945-12-21 American author and journalist "The Old Man and the Sea" Ernest Hemingway and journalist Martha Gellhorn divorce after 5 years of marriage.