On Aug. 18, 1587, Virginia Dare became the first child of English parents to be born on American soil, on what is now Roanoke Island, N.C.
In 1834 Chicago department store founder Marshall Field was born near Conway, Mass.
In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson issued his “Proclamation of Neutrality,” to keep the U.S. out of World War I.
In 1937 actor-director Robert Redford was born in Santa Monica, Calif.
In 1954 Assistant Labor Secretary James Wilkins became the first African-American to attend a meeting of a president’s Cabinet.
In 1982 volume on the New York Stock exchange topped 100 million as 132.69 million shares were traded.
In 1991 Soviet hard-liners launched a coup aimed at toppling President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
In 2003 a French health official resigned after the health minister admitted that up to 5,000 people might have died in a heat wave.
