July 6th

1699 - Captain William Kidd, the pirate, was captured in Boston, MA, and deported back to England.

1777 - British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolution.

1854 - In Jackson, MI, the Republican Party held its first convention.

1858 - Lyman Blake patented the shoe manufacturing machine.

1885 - Louis Pasteur successfully tested his anti-rabies vaccine. The child used in the test later became the director of the Pasteur Institute.

1905 - Fingerprints were exchanged for the first time between officials in Europe and the U.S. The person in question was John Walker.

1928 - "The Lights of New York" was previewed in New York's Strand Theatre. It was the first all-talking movie.

1932 - The postage rate for first class mail in the U.S. went from 2-cents to 3-cents.

1933 - The first All-Star baseball game was held in Chicago. The American League beat the National League 4-2.

1944 - A fire broke out in the main tent of the Ringling Brother, Barnum and Bailey Circus. 169 people died.

1948 - Frieda Hennok became the first woman to serve as the commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.

1981 - The Dupont Company announced an agreement to purchase Conoco, Inc. (Continental Oil Co.) for $7 billion. At the time it was the largest merger in corporate history.

1983 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that retirement plans could not pay women smaller monthly payments solely because of their gender.

1983 - Fred Lynn of the California Angels hit the first grand slam in an All-Star game. The American League defeated the National League 13-3.

1994 - On Storm King Mountain, in Colorado, 14 firefighters were killed while fighting a several-day-old fire.

1995 - In Los Angeles, the prosecution rested at the O.J. Simpson murder trial.