On this date

1620 — 41 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, anchored off Massachusetts, signed a compact calling for a “body politick.” 1778 — British redcoats, Tory rangers and Seneca Indians in central New York killed more than 40 people in the Cherry Valley Massacre. 1831 — Former slave Nat Turner, who’d led a violent insurrection, was executed in Jerusalem, Virginia. 1889 — Washington became the 42nd state. 1917 — Liliuokalani, Hawaii’s first and only queen and its last monarch, died in Honolulu at age 79. 1921 — The remains of an unidentified American service member were interred in a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in a ceremony presided over by President Warren G. Harding. 1923 — A ceremony took place at Myrtle Hill Cemetery to honor the Floyd County men who died in World War I. 1938 — Irish-born cook Mary Mallon, who’d gained notoriety as the disease-carrying “Typhoid Mary” blamed for the deaths of three people, died on North Brother Island in New York’s East River at age 69 after 23 years of mandatory quarantine. 1942 — During World War II, Germany completed its occupation of France. 1966 — Gemini 12 blasted off on a four-day mission with astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. aboard; it was the tenth and final flight of NASA’s Gemini program. 1972 — The U.S. Army turned over its base at Long Binh to the South Vietnamese, symbolizing the end of direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. 1987 — Following the failure of two Supreme Court nominations, President Ronald Reagan announced his choice of Judge Anthony M. Kennedy, who went on to win confirmation. 1992 — The Church of England voted to ordain women as priests. 2011 — Donald Dowless took up the reins as the 19th president of Shorter University.

‘Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.’ Kurt Vonnegut American author (born this date in 1922, died 2007)