Birth of Henry Knox 

US #1851 was issued on Knox’s 235th birthday. Click image to order.

Henry Knox was born on July 25, 1750, in Boston, Massachusetts.

After his father abandoned the family, Henry, the family’s oldest son, left school and took a job as a clerk in a bookstore.  The shop’s owner, Nicholas Bowes, became a father figure to Knox.  But Knox was also caught up in Boston’s street gangs, becoming one of his neighborhood’s best fighters.  Then, one day he witnessed an impressive military demonstration and decided to join his local artillery company at age 18.

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Birth of Simón Bolivar 

US #1110 was issued on Bolívar’s 175th birthday. Click image to order.

Military and political leader Simón Bolívar was born on July 24, 1783, in Caracas, New Granada (present-day Venezuela).

Bolivar came from a wealthy family and moved to Spain in 1799 following the deaths of his parents. Bolívar was married in 1802, but his wife died the following year.  After that, he went to Europe and befriended Napoleon.  However, a few years later Napoleon named Joseph Bonaparte King of Spain, and its colonies (including Venezuela) and Bolívar joined in the growing resistance movement.

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Death Of Roger Sherman

US #1693 pictures Sherman at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Click image to order.

Roger Sherman, the only man in US history to sign America’s four most important documents; the Articles of Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, died on July 23, 1793.

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Birth of Edward Hopper

US #3236p – One of Hopper’s most famous paintings, Nighthawks. Click image to order.

Realist painter Edward Hopper was born on July 22, 1882, in Upper Nyack, New York.

Hopper displayed a talent for drawing by the time he was five.  His parents encouraged him to pursue art, buying him supplies and books.  By the time he was a teenager, Hopper was drawing and painting and making political cartoons.

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Happy Birthday, Ernest Hemingway

US #2418 – Hemingway was the seventh honoree in the Literary Arts Series. Click image to order.

Author Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. 

Hemingway came from a well-respected family in the Chicago suburb.  His mother insisted he learn to play the cello, which he later credited as useful to his writing.  His father taught him to hunt, fish, and camp, giving him a life-long interest in outdoor activities.

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U.S. Lands First Men On The Moon

US #C76 was the first jumbo-sized US commemorative. Click image to order.

On July 20, 1969, the US effectively won the Space Race when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Eagle lunar module on the Moon’s surface.

The space race began 12 years earlier, on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union used rocket technology developed by the Germans in World War II to launch Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite.  Originally, Sputnik was intended to be a massive, thousand-pound satellite.  However, because the Americans were attempting to launch their own satellite, the decision was made to scale back the design considerably.  At the time of launch, Sputnik was no bigger than a basketball.

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