SANDY KOZEL

Aviator Wiley Post ended his around-the-world flight on this day in
1933. He had traveled 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours,  and 49
minutes. He was the first aviator to accomplish the feat. He began
the journey on July 15, flying nonstop to Berlin.

Wiley Hardeman Post (November 22, 1898 – August 15, 1935)

The “Winnie Mae” is on display at a branch of the Smithsonian’s
National Air and Space Museum.

Wild Bill Hickok threatens the friends of Davis Tutt after defeating
Tutt in a duel.

In what may be the first true western showdown on this day in 1865, Wild Bill Hickok shoots Dave Tutt dead in the market square of Springfield, Missouri.

Hollywood movies and dime novels notwithstanding, the classic western showdown–also called a walkdown–happened only rarely in the American
West. Rather than coolly confronting each other on a dusty street in a deadly
game of quick draw, most men began shooting at each other in drunken
brawls or spontaneous arguments. Ambushes and cowardly attacks were
far more common than noble showdowns.

The first story of the shootout was detailed in an article in Harper’s Magazine
in 1867, making Hickok a household name and folk hero.

James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok (1837-1876)

Davis “Dave” Tutt was born during
1836 in Yellville, Arkansas.

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

The first major battle of the U.S. Civil War began. It was the Battle
of Bull Run at Manassas Junction, VA. The Confederates won the
battle. Union forces endured a loss of 3,000 men killed, wounded,
or missing in action while the Confederates suffered 2,000
casualties.

   
 
TIM MAGUIRE
   

Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface. 

First footprint on the Moon (left) was that of astronaut Neil
Armstrong (right).

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Jr. poses for a photograph beside the U.S. flag.
(Neil Armstrong/NASA via AP)

On this day in 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a
French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing
near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles north of Alexandria. The irregularly
shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in 3 different scripts:
Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic. The ancient Greek on
the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests
honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More
startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of
identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been “dead” for nearly 2,000
years.

The Rosetta Stone on display in The British Museum.

"Lithograph image depicting a group of scholars inspecting the
Rosetta Stone during the Second International Congress of
Orientalists, 1874.