Reconciliation Park

This year will mark the 150th anniversary of the largest mass execution in United States history. At 10 AM on December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota Indians were executed by the government in Mankato, Minnesota, marking the end of the Minnesota Dakota (Sioux) War. Today, a memorial statue stands in Reconciliation Park, the site of the execution.

James Meredith

Born in 1933, James Meredith, pictured here in 1962, was the first African-American admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi. 

Where It All Began

On July 2, 1962, retailer Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store, pictured above, in Rogers, Arkansas.  The company now operates 10,000 stores in 27 countries, serving 200 million customers  weekly.

Operation Crossroads

On July 25, 1946, the United States conducted Operation Crossroads, a nuclear test in the lagoon of tiny Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific. Many decommissioned ships from the US Navy fleet were purposely placed in the lagoon for the test in order to study any effects a nuclear bomb would have on them. In preparation for the test, residents of the atoll were relocated to another island, and Bikini remains uninhabited to this day as a result of unsafe radiation levels.