July 13 · This Day in America
While the Constitutional Convention argues in Philadelphia, the old Confederation Congress in New York quietly passes the Northwest Ordinance — and it may be the most far-sighted thing that fragile government ever did. It charts how the vast territory north of the Ohio River will be governed and, crucially, how it will become states: equal partners, not colonies. It guarantees religious freedom, trial by jury, and habeas corpus. It declares that schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. And in Article 6, it says the thing the Constitution itself would not yet dare: there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory. The country was still inventing itself. On this day, for half a continent it had not yet filled, it chose free soil.
Source: www.archives.gov
Also on this day · 1923
On a Los Angeles hillside, the Crescent Sign Company finishes thirteen white letters fifty feet tall, studded with four thousand light bulbs that blink HOLLY, then WOOD, then LAND. It is dedicated July 13, 1923, to sell house lots, and meant to last about a year and a half. The lots sold, the developer faded, the LAND came down in 1949 — but the sign stayed, and a billboard became the most famous word on any hillside on Earth.
Source: www.hollywoodsign.org
“Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”Northwest Ordinance, Article 3, 1787