This Month In Colonial History: April

Washington Irving meeting George Washington

It's that time again!

1: Oliver Pollack invents the dollar sign: $ (1778)

2: Spanish explorer Ponce De Leon sights Florida for the first time, and after landing at what is now St. Augustine, claims it for the Spanish Crown. (St. Augustine has the distinction of being the continental US’s oldest city.) (1513)

2: Congress passes the Coinage Act, establishing the U.S. Mint. (1792)

3: Birth of American folk writer Washington Irving (1783-1859) in New York City.

By George Bernard Butler, jr. - Historic Hudson Valley, Public Domain, Link

7: Uprising by 27 enslaved Africans. The state militia was called out to deal with the situation; 6 slaves committed suicide and 21 were executed. (1712)

9: French explorer LaSalle reaches the Mississippi river. (1691)

13: Birth of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) in Albemarle County, Virginia.

14: First abolitionist society in America founded in Philadelphia. (1775)

14: First American Dictionary of the English Language published by Noah Webster. (1828) Until this time, spelling was not standardized, even among the educated.

15: First school for the deaf established in Hartford, Connecticut, by Thomas H. Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. (1817)

18: “The Red Coats are coming!” Famous “midnight ride” by Paul Revere--and William Dawes--from Charlestown to Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, on the eve of what is marked by many as the beginning of the American Revolution. (1775)

19: The Revolutionary War begins at Lexington, Massachusetts. (1775)

24: The founding of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. (1800)

27: First Lieutenant Presley N. O'Bannon, who with seven other Marines was part of a force of Greeks and Arabs led by American Consul William Eaton, raised the United States flag for the first time over a conquered fortress of the Old World at Derne, a stronghold of the Tripolitan pirates. Two Marines were killed and one wounded in the assault on the walled city. (1805, from www.usmcu.edu)

First Inauguration of George Washington

28: Birth of James Monroe (1758-1831), our 5th US President, in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

30: The presidential oath of office administered for the first time ever, to George Washington. (1789)


My thanks to The History Place, Holiday Insights, and Marine Corps University.