On Sept. 16, 1630, the village of Shawmut, Mass., changed its name to Boston.
In 1810 Mexicans began their revolt against Spanish rule.
In 1875 department store founder James Cash Penney was born in Hamilton, Mo.
In 1919 the American Legion was incorporated by an act of Congress.
In 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the nation’s first peacetime military draft.
In 1974 President Gerald Ford offered conditional amnesty to Vietnam War draft evaders and deserters.
In 1976 the Episcopal Church, at its General Convention in Minneapolis, formally approved the ordination of women as priests and bishops.
In 1987 two dozen countries signed the Montreal Protocol, a treaty designed to save the Earth’s ozone layer by calling on nations to reduce emissions of harmful chemicals.
In 1994 a federal jury in Anchorage ordered Exxon Corp. to pay $5 billion in punitive damages to commercial fishermen, Alaskan natives, property owners and others harmed by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.
In 1999 Hurricane Floyd hit the Carolinas and claimed more than 50 lives even after it weakened to a tropical storm.
