This Day In History, July 11th

1656: The First Quakers Arrive In The Colonies

Englishwomen Ann Austin and Mary Fisher become the first Quakers to arrive in the American colonies. Coming from Barbados, where Quakers had an established missionary, Austin and Fisher landed in Boston. Local Puritans frowned on their teachings, however, and they were both jailed for five years before they were deported back to Barbados.

1804: Alexander Hamilton Is Killed In A Duel

Wikimedia CommonsAlexander Hamilton, left, and Aaron Burr, right, infamously dueled in Weehawken, New Jersey, resulting in Hamilton’s death.

Alexander Hamilton is killed in a duel with Aaron Burr. The former Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton had spoken out against Vice President Burr on multiple occasions.

When a newspaper reported that Hamilton had uttered a “despicable opinion” about Burr, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel and killed him in Weehawken, New Jersey.

1851: The Conjoined McCoy Twins Are Born

The conjoined McCoy twins.

Millie and Christine McCoy, a pair of conjoined twins, are born in Welches Creek, North Carolina. The daughters of an enslaved couple, they were taken from their parents and sold in order to be exhibited as “The Carolina Twins.” They later worked in circuses across the world on their own terms and wrote a book about their lives.

1960: To Kill A Mockingbird Is Published

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is published. The iconic coming-of-age story about racial injustice in a small Southern town won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. Lee’s story was also adapted into a film the next year, for which Gregory Peck won an Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch.

1979: Skylab Crashes To Earth

Public DomainSkylab as seen from space in 1974.

Skylab, the United States’ first space station, comes crashing back to Earth. First launched in 1973, the space station began to deteriorate quicker than NASA anticipated. Without a set plan to bring the station down, NASA fired the station’s booster rockets, which sent it on a collision course with the Indian Ocean — as well as populated parts of western Australia.