Atlanta Falls: How Sherman’s Capture of Atlanta Turned the Civil War on September 2, 1864

On the morning of September 2, 1864, Atlanta Mayor James M. Calhoun rode out with a small delegation to meet the advancing Union forces. He carried a formal note of surrender: R

US Treasury Created: How Congress Established the Department of the Treasury on September 2, 1789

On September 2, 1789, the First Congress of the United States passed an act creating the Department of the Treasury, the third executive department of the new federal government. P

Great Fire of London: How a Baker’s Oven Burned the Medieval City to the Ground in 1666

Shortly after midnight on Sunday, September 2, 1666, a fire broke out at the bakery of Thomas Farriner on Pudding Lane in the City of London, near London Bridge. The Farriner famil

PT-109 Incident: How JFK’s Patrol Boat Was Rammed by a Japanese Destroyer

In the early hours of August 2, 1943, in the profound darkness of Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands, a twenty-six-year-old naval lieutenant named John F. Kennedy stood in the

Einstein Letter to FDR: How a Warning About the Atomic Bomb Changed History

On August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein signed a letter addressed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from his summer cottage at Nassau Point in Peconic, Long Island. The letter was rela

Hitler Becomes Führer: How the Death of Hindenburg Completed the Nazi Seizure of Power

At 9:00 in the morning on August 2, 1934, German President Paul von Hindenburg died at his country estate in Neudeck, East Prussia. He was eighty-six years old, and had been suffer

Declaration Signed: How 56 Men Put Their Names to American Independence on August 2, 1776

On August 2, 1776, in the assembly room of the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, the president of the Continental Congress, John Hancock of Massachusetts, stepped forward a