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.

CARLATA BRADLEY

The Eagle prepares to land: Photo shows Lunar Module ‘Eagle’ photographed from Command Module ‘Columbia’.

The Command Service Module Columbia.

On this day in 1969, Apollo 11 made thirty orbits of the moon which allowed
them to view the landing site: the southern Sea of Tranquility, one of the
most suitably flat areas. This area had confirmed by the Apollo 10 ‘dress
rehearsal’ mission in which the crew captured vital film footage and photos 
while orbiting the moon.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945)

On this day in 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who first took office in 1933
as America’s 32nd president, is nominated for an unprecedented third term.

Roosevelt, a Democrat, would eventually be elected to a record four terms
in office, the only U.S. president to serve more than two terms.