The miniature sailing ship Red, White, and Blue, a regulation three-masted square rigger but only 26 feet long and 2.35 tons, had sailed from Sandy Hook, New Jersey on July 9, 1866.  Aboard were two expert sailors, Captain James Hudson and Mate F.E. Fitch, together with their dog "Fanny."  The tiny sailing ship reached Margate on the Kent coast of England on this day, having crossed the ocean in a remarkable thirty-five days. Organized as a publicity stunt by O.K. Ingersoll for his new lifeboat design, the feat met with scepticism at the time but was later proved to be completely valid. (By John Osborne)

The miniature sailing ship Red, White, and Blue, a regulation three-masted square rigger but only 26 feet long and 2.35 tons, sailed from Sandy Hook, New Jersey bound for a transAtlantic crossing.  Aboard were two expert sailors, Captain James Hudson and Mate F.E. Fitch, together with their dog "Fanny."  The tiny sailing ship reached Margate on the Kent coast of England on August 16, 1866, having crossed the ocean in a remarkable thirty-five days. Organized as a publicity stunt by O.K. Ingersoll for his new lifeboat design, the feat met with scepticism at the time but was later proved to be completely valid. (By John Osborne)

Jerome Park Racecourse, then in Westchester County, New York but later encompassed in the Bronx, on Jerome Avenue, Kingsbridge Road, and Sedgwick Avenue, hosted its opening race meeting on this day under the auspices of the New York Jockey Club.  Prominent in the course's development was Leonard W. Jerome, Winston Churchill's maternal grandfather. The venue hosted the first Belmont Stakes the following year and continued as the race's home until 1890.  (By John Osborne)  

The Great Tea Race of 1866 was a race between clipper ships loaded with China tea bound for London.  Sixteen loaded sailing ships left Foochow in China on the same tide and, remarkably, ninety-nine days and 14,000 miles later three of them, Ariel, Taeping, and the Serica arrived at their docks in London, also on the same tide, The Taeping docked twenty-eight minutes ahead of Ariel. The Taeping, with her 1,108,700 pounds of tea aboard, was declared the official winner but the two ships shared the premium price for their tea, which was the main prize.  (By John Osborne)

American Catholic clergy gathered in Baltimore, Maryland for the Second Plenary Council with seven archbishops, thirty-nine bishops, and two abbots in attendance under the leadership of Marin Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore. The previous plenary gathering had been in 1852 and there would be another in 1884.  The deliberations of the meeting produced a series of decrees, largely a set of warnings of "errors" and a call for consistent discipline across the dioceses of the United States.  (By John Osborne).  

Tragedy struck outside Johnstown, Pennsylvania with the collapse of a crowded temporary platform, built to view President Johnson's Harrisburg-bound train as he neared the end of his notorious "Swing Around the Circle" speaking tour. At least four people were crushed in the accident and hundreds more were injured. Already intensely unpopular, Johnson gained no praise when his train barely halted before heading for the Pennsylvania capital. (By John Osborne)  

The Southern Loyalists Convention met in Philadelphia with 400 delegates from across both North and South.  James Speed of Kentucky was elected to the chair but divisions over black suffrage and congressional representation quickly emerged and the views of the southerners were represented in the resolutions of the "Committee Upon the Un-reconstructed States."  Though majority and minority reports were issued, the convention was united in its condemnation of President Johnson and his policies and the continuing murderous violence against Unionists in the southern states. (By John Osborne)