Today in History, July 19th
On July 19, 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention opened, launching the U.S. women's rights movement. Plus the Mary Rose and the first Tour de France.
Published
July 19 is best known for 1848, when the first women’s rights convention in the United States opened in Seneca Falls, New York. The date also saw the warship Mary Rose sink off England in 1545 and Maurice Garin win the first Tour de France in 1903.
The big story: The Seneca Falls Convention opens (1848)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott first met in 1840 in London, at the World Anti-Slavery Convention, where they were kept off the floor for being women. Eight years later they got even, in the most productive way possible. With Martha Wright, Mary Ann McClintock and Jane Hunt, they called a meeting at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, for July 19 and 20, 1848. About 200 women came the first day. Men were invited on the second, and around 40 showed up, among them Frederick Douglass. Stanton had written a Declaration of Sentiments patterned on the Declaration of Independence, adding women to its famous line about equality and listing the wrongs done to them. The gathering approved 12 resolutions. Only one met resistance: the call for women’s right to vote. Douglass backed Stanton, and it passed after long debate. Newspapers mocked the meeting, but annual national conventions followed, and the 19th Amendment finally secured women’s vote in 1920.
More events on July 19
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 64 | A great fire broke out in Rome, and Emperor Nero used the disaster to push his own political aims. |
| 1545 | The English warship Mary Rose sank in the English Channel during the Battle of the Solent. |
| 1553 | Lady Jane Grey was pushed off the English throne after nine days in favor of her cousin Mary. |
| 1870 | France’s Napoleon III declared war on Prussia, starting the Franco-German War. |
| 1903 | Maurice Garin won the first Tour de France. |
| 1943 | U.S. bombers struck railway yards in Rome to pressure Italians and their leader, Benito Mussolini. |
| 1947 | Burmese independence leader Aung San was assassinated in Rangoon. |
| 1952 | Air traffic controllers in Washington, D.C., tracked unidentified objects over the White House and Capitol; the government later blamed the weather. |
| 1956 | Secretary of State John Foster Dulles withdrew U.S. aid for Egypt’s Aswan High Dam, a step toward the Suez Crisis. |
| 1980 | The Summer Olympics opened in Moscow, with about 60 countries boycotting over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. |
| 2007 | The first episode of the TV drama Mad Men aired. |
Born on July 19
- 1834: Edgar Degas, French painter and sculptor tied to the Impressionists, born in Paris.
- 1922: George McGovern, South Dakota senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, born in Avon, South Dakota.
- 1947: Brian May, British musician and lead guitarist of Queen.
Sources
- Seneca Falls Convention begins, History.com
- This Day in History: July 19, History.com
- On This Day: July 19, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Edgar Degas, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- George McGovern, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Brian May, Encyclopaedia Britannica
