July 5
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-5
On July 5, 1775, the Continental Congress adopts the Olive Branch Petition, written by John Dickinson, which appeals directly to King George III and expresses hope for reconciliation between the colonies and Great Britain. Dickinson, who hoped desperately to avoid a final break with Britain, phrased colonial opposition to British policy as follows: “Your Majesty’s Ministers, persevering in their measures, and proceeding to open hostilities for enforcing them, have compelled us to arm in our own defence, and have engaged us in a controversy so peculiarly abhorrent to the affections of your still faithful Colonists, that when we consider whom we must oppose in this contest, and if it continues, what may be the consequences, our own particular misfortunes are accounted by us only as parts of our distress.”
During an Independence Day celebration in Rochester, New York on July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivers what would become his most celebrated speech, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” Tensions over slavery in the early 1850s are high, and the famed abolitionist’s oration serves as a searing reminder that at the time, only a fraction of the U.S. population enjoyed the freedom celebrated by the nation.
After Judge Hugo Friend denies a motion to quash the indictments against the major league baseball players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series, a trial begins with jury selection. The Chicago White Sox players, including stars Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver and Eddie Cicotte, subsequently became known as the “Black Sox” after the scandal was revealed.