The North Carolina legislature passed a series of laws defining the status of free people of color in the post-Civil War world. Legislation granted largely equal status under most state laws where blacks were the injured or accused party but not in others, required a white witness to all contracts, maintained the unequal penalty of death for black men in the rape of white women, and annulled and banned all mixed marriages. (By John Osborne)

In Texas, the Constitutional Convention adjourned with a completed document to be popularly voted on the following June 5, 1866.  It abolished slavery in the state, repudiated the Confederate debt, and repealed the Secession Ordinance, all conditions for a return to national representation.  It also stated that the white population would determine such representation and declared amnesty for military and civil actions during the war.  (By John Osborne) 

With former Union surgeon Benjamin F. Stephenson in the lead, veterans in Decatur, Illinois opened the first post of what rapidly became the nationwide organization known as the Grand Army of the Republic.  Founded in Illinois partly as a political support group for Republican candidates there and partly to recapture the comradeship of the war, the nationwide Grand Army held its first "national encampment" in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 20, 1866. (By John Osborne)  

Six former Confederate soldiers founded a secret "circle" they called Klu Klux, largely as secret social club for C.S.A. veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee.  Located in a county with a large black population, the club began pranks aimed at African-Americans, featuring their distinctive "ghost of dead Confederates" costumes.  As the organization spread and became the Klu Klux Klan, these activities quickly became a deadly political resistance to change in the South and a home to white supremacist terrorists.  (By John Osborne)  

Bedřich Smetana's second opera The Bartered Bride had its premier in the Provisional Theater in Prague with the composer conducting.  It had a moderate early success but became very popular and influential in his native Bohemia, especially after Smetana revised it into the version performed today.  Smetana wrote eight operas in all and became the musical spirit of Czech national feeling. (By John Osborne)

Lucy Hobbs had earlier been refused entry to dental school but had studied privately and opened her own practice in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1861. After practicing in Iowa she was professionally recognized enough to enter the Ohio College of Dental Surgery and graduated first in her class on this day.  She married and practiced, with her husband, for many years and later in life dedicated herself to woman's suffrage issues.  She died in 1910 at age 77. (By John Osborne)