Sunday · November 15, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
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19941776 Club

Bezos quits Wall Street, incorporates a bookstore called Cadabra in his Bellevue garage

Web usage is climbing 2,300 percent a year; the 30-year-old typed the business plan during the drive out from New York.

In spring 1994, web usage was growing at 2,300 percent a year, and a 30-year-old Wall Street executive named Jeff Bezos decided he could not sit it out. He quit his job, typed a business plan during a cross-country drive, and on July 5, 1994, incorporated a company in Bellevue, Washington, first named Cadabra, Inc. He chose books as his opening product for their low cost and universal demand. Within 30 days, the venture he'd renamed Amazon.com was selling $20,000 worth of books a week out of his garage…

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More from July 5
1814

Scott's regulars break Riall's line at Chippawa; the British general had taken them for militia

After 25 minutes of volley fire on open ground near the Niagara, the Right Division's lines collapse and American regulars prove they can stand against British veterans.
1775

Congress sends King George a loyalty oath and a list of grievances; the delegates call it their olive branch

Hancock and the full Congress sign the petition in Philadelphia, and envoys Richard Penn and Arthur Lee are bound for London with the appeal.
1859

Captain Brooks claims a mid-Pacific atoll for the United States; he calls it the Middlebrook Islands

The sealing ship Gambia raised the flag under the Guano Islands Act, planting a U.S. claim a third of the way between Honolulu and Tokyo.
18521776 Club
Speaking the day after Independence Day at Corinthian Hall, he calls slavery "the great sin and shame of America" before a mostly white crowd invited by the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society.
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More from Modern America
2013

Cassini turns its camera toward Earth; Saturn's shadow makes it possible

Imaging leader Carolyn Porco positioned the spacecraft to catch the sun eclipsed by Saturn, putting Earth in the frame 1.44 billion kilometers away, and millions look up and wave.
1997

Old Ironsides sails again; Cronkite takes the helm off Marblehead

The 1797 frigate moves under her own canvas for the first time in 116 years, on sails paid for through a national campaign of citizen and student donations.
1999

Collins becomes first woman to command a shuttle; Columbia loses an engine on the way up

A loose pin ruptures coolant tubes during ascent, but Columbia still reaches orbit to release the heaviest payload NASA had ever flown.
1998

Clinton tells grand jury of "improper" ties to Lewinsky, then tells the country he misled them

Seven months after denying it on camera, the president reverses himself twice in one day.
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