1775 – The office that would later become the United States Post Office Department is established by the Second Continental Congress.
1788 – New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States. In 1785 until 1789 New York City was the first capital under the Articles of Confederation, and for a temporary period from 1789-90 while the constitution was being ratified, of the United States of America.
1945 – The Potsdam Declaration is signed in Potsdam, Germany.
At the Potsdam Conference, the Big Three – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (replaced on July 26 of that year by Clement Attlee) and U.S. President Harry Truman met in the German city, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II. The Potsdam ultimatum (Potsdam Declaration) was a document issued by the U.S. president, the British prime minister, and the Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China Chiang Kai-shek which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the conference. With the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the official Soviet declaration of war against the empire on August 8 of that summer, the Japanese were forced into a surrender that was virtually unconditional. An unconditional surrender in which no guarantees are given to the surrendering party, putting psychological pressure on a weaker adversary, as well as more hostility. A conditional surrender, on the other hand, results in the transfer of territories, combatants, etc etc.
1948 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military of the United States. Before the executive order, blacks in the military worked under different rules that delayed their entry into combat – They had to wait three years before they could begin combat training while within a few months white Americans were qualified and assigned. Various branches of the government, especially the Air Corps, needed more manpower, hence the executive order was introduced and enforced.
Births
1678 – Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1711)
1842 – Alfred Marshall, English economist and academic (d. 1924)
1844 – Stefan Drzewiecki, Ukrainian-Polish engineer and journalist
1865 – Philipp Scheidemann, German journalist and politician, 10th Chancellor of Germany (d. 1939)
1874 – Serge Koussevitzky, Russian-American bassist, composer, and conductor (d. 1951)
1904 – Edwin Albert Link, American industrialist and entrepreneur, invented the flight simulator (d. 1981)
1909 – Peter Thorneycroft, English lawyer and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (d. 1994). The Chancellor of the Exchequer, sometimes shortened to The Chancellor, is a British political office for Britain’s money and economy. The office originally carried the responsibilities for the Exchequer, the medieval English institution for the collection of royal revenues. The Chancellor is the third-oldest major state office in English and British history, having been founded sometime during the reign of English monarch Henry I (Late ninth to early 10th centuries). Thorneycroft served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from January 13, 1957, to July 13, 1958. The current chancellor is Philip Hammond, having served this position since earlier this month on July 13, 2016. The term length ranges from one year with Thorneycroft to six or more years with George Osborne (May 12, 2010, to July 13, 2016)
1929 – Joe Jackson, American talent manager, father of the Jackson family
Deaths
1533 – Atahualpa, Incan emperor murdered by Francisco Pizarro
1659 – Mary Frith, English pickpocket and fence (b. 1584)
1867 – Otto, Bavarian prince, first modern King of Greece (b. 1815)
1915 – James Murray, Scottish lexicographer (a person who compiles dictionaries) and philologist (studier of languages in historical texts) (b. 1837)
1926 – Robert Todd Lincoln, American lawyer and politician, 35th United States Secretary of War, son of Abraham Lincoln (b. 1843)
2004 – William A. Mitchell, American chemist, created Pop Rocks and Cool Whip