On July 26, 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
was born when U.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte
orders a group of newly hired federal investigators to report
to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch of the Department of
Justice.

Charles Joseph Bonaparte
(June 9, 1851 – June 28, 1921)

From left is President Roosevelt with his Cabinet. Attorney General Bonaparte is the third from the left.

On July 26, 1775, the U.S. postal system was established by the
Second Continental Congress, with Benjamin Franklin as its
first postmaster general. Franklin (1706-1790) put in place
the foundation for many aspects of today’s mail system.

"Incline" portion of the Granite Railway, Pine Hill Quarry to Neponset River, Quincy, Norfolk County, Massachusetts.

What is believed to be the first recorded railroad accident in U.S.
history occurred when four people were thrown off a vacant car
on the Granite Railway near Quincy, Massachusetts.

The victims had been invited to view the process of transporting
large and weighty loads of stone when a cable on a vacant car
snapped on the return trip, throwing them off the train and over
a 34-foot cliff. One man was killed and the others were seriously
injured.

Granite Railway memorial in East Milton Square.

A lifeboat full of survivors from the ill-fated Andrea Doria
which is sinking in the background.

At 11:10 p.m. on July 25, 1956, 45 miles south of Nantucket
Island, the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria and the Swedish
ocean liner Stockholm collided in a heavy Atlantic fog. Fifty-
one passengers and crew were killed in the collision, which
ripped a great hole in the broad side of the Italian vessel.

The badly damaged Stockholm limped into New York
and offloaded its passengers, along with survivors
from the Andrea Doria. It proceeded to the Bethlehem
Steel Shipyard in New Jersey where it was fitted with
a brand new bow.

An Air France Concorde jet crashed upon takeoff in Paris on
July 25, 2000, killing 109 passengers and crew onboard as
well as four people on the ground.

The Concorde, the world’s fastest commercial jet, had enjoyed
an exemplary safety record up to that point, with no crashes
in the plane’s 31-year history.

Air France Flight 4590 left DeGaulle Airport for New York with
nine crew members and 96 German tourists who were planning
to take a cruise to Ecuador.

Concorde jets went back into service in November 2001, but a
series of minor problems prompted both Air France and British
Airways to end Concorde service permanently in October 2003.