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Made for the 250thOn this day › August 31
What happened on August 31 in American history
August 31 is the 243rd day of the year (the 244th in leap years). Patriot Compass has published 7 stories from August 31 spanning 1776 to 1943. Among them: in 1776, New Jersey swears in its first governor: William Livingston takes office; and in 1814, Under a full moon, Maryland militia kill the British captain leading a night raid.
1776Member story · 1776 Club
New Jersey swears in its first governor: William Livingston takes office
A lawyer who trained in New York courts now leads a state that is still being organized while at war.
1814
Under a full moon, Maryland militia kill the British captain leading a night raid
Sir Peter Parker bleeds out on a Kent County farm field while his men flee for their boats.
1864
South of Atlanta, Federal troops crack Hardee's line at Jonesborough
Hood had already pulled half the defenders back toward Atlanta before the attack even began.
1886
The ground rolls like an awful roar; Charleston is shaking apart
At 9:50 p.m. the earth under a city with no history of quakes tears itself open along an ancient, forgotten fault.
1897Member story · 1776 Club
Edison patents the Kinetograph, a camera built to take pictures that move
Patent number 609,610 formalizes years of work by Edison's laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey.
1935Member story · 1776 Club
Congress bars arms sales to any nation at war
Americans who sail on warring ships now do so at their own risk, the new law warns.
1943Member story · 1776 Club
Navy commissions the USS Harmon, its first warship named for a Black sailor
Leonard Roy Harmon's mother christened the ship that would carry his name into the Pacific war.
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