1895: Booker T. Washington delivered his famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech also known as the "Atlanta Exposition Speech" at the opening of the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. Washington, the founder and president of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University), was the first African-American man ever to address a racially mixed Southern audience. In 1881, Washington established the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. With his political savvy and talent for fund-raising, he quickly transformed the small collection of dilapidated buildings into one of the finest and most renowned African-American educational institutions in the country. (Source: Library of Congress)

1793: The cornerstone to the U.S. Capitol was laid in Washington D.C. by George Washington.