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Today in History, July 5th

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave his speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Plus the bikini's debut and Dolly the sheep.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 2 min read Sources checked

Published July 5, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

July 5 is best known for 1852, when Frederick Douglass delivered his speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” in Rochester, New York. The date also saw the bikini introduced in 1946 and the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, in 1996.

The big story: Frederick Douglass asks “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (1852)

The Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society gathered about 600 people in Corinthian Hall, a new venue in Rochester, New York, the day after the nation’s birthday. The man at the podium had been born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland, and escaped at 20 by posing as a free Black sailor. By 1852, Frederick Douglass had published a bestselling account of his life, the 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. He did not offer the crowd an easy holiday speech. He granted that the signers of the Declaration of Independence were great men. Then he turned the occasion around. The freedoms they won, he argued, belonged to white Americans, and for the enslaved, Independence Day only exposed the cruelty and injustice they lived under. To them, he said, the fireworks and speeches were a sham. Douglass later became an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln.

More events on July 5

Year	What happened
1775	The Continental Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition, an appeal to King George III to make peace with the colonies.
1914	Germany promised Austria-Hungary unconditional backing against Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the so-called “blank check.”
1937	Hormel introduced Spam, its canned luncheon meat.
1946	The bikini was introduced.
1954	At Sun Records, Sam Phillips recorded a young Elvis Presley singing “That’s All Right (Mama).”
1975	Arthur Ashe beat Jimmy Connors to become the first Black man to win Wimbledon.
1978	Nineteen disability activists, the “Gang of 19,” blocked a Denver city bus to protest that it was not accessible to people with disabilities.
1994	Jeff Bezos founded Cadabra, an online bookstore that later became Amazon.
1996	Dolly the sheep was born at the Roslin Institute in Scotland, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.
2003	The World Health Organization announced that person-to-person spread of SARS had stopped worldwide.

Born on July 5

1810: P.T. Barnum, showman who popularized the three-ring circus, born in Bethel, Connecticut.
1889: Jean Cocteau, French poet, playwright, novelist and filmmaker, born in Maisons-Laffitte, near Paris.
1985: Megan Rapinoe, soccer star who helped the U.S. win two Women’s World Cups, born in Redding, California.