The new federal tax on incomes, passed the previous August, came into effect.  Progressive rates began with 3% on incomes more than $800 per year.  This tax was rescinded, along with other Civil War special taxes, in 1872. (By John Osborne)

In Racine, Wisconsin, the Slovan Amerikansky published its first issue on this day. A small weekly folio sheet under the editorship of Frank Korizek, it was the first Czech language newspaper in the United States. (By John Osborne)

The New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor opens its public Bath and Wash House in Mott Street, the first in the nation. It will have almost a million visitors in its first year of operation. (By John Osborne)

The keeper of the first iron pile lighthouse built in the United States, Isaac Durham, lights its lamp for the first time.  It will be swept away in a heavy gale on April 15, 1851, with the loss of two of its keepers. (By John Osborne)

John Donkey began publication in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the first comic weekly periodical in the nation. It ran to sixteen pages, costs six cents, and was edited by Thomas Dunn English and George C. Foster. Its last issue was in October, nine months later. (John Osborne)