July 15 · This Day in America
On this day Georgia's congressmen are finally seated, and the last state to leave the Union becomes the last to return. The arithmetic of secession is closed: every star is back on the flag. But the road here tells the harder truth. Georgia had been readmitted once already, in 1868 — then expelled its twenty-seven duly elected Black legislators, and the Camilla Massacre left Black voters dead in the street. Congress reimposed military rule and refused to seat the state until it ratified the Fifteenth Amendment and let those men take their seats. Reunion did not mean justice was done; the betrayals of Reconstruction were only beginning. But on July 15, 1870, the formal wound of disunion was, at last, stitched shut. The country was one country again — and the longer argument about what that country owes its people went on.
Source: www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
Also on this day · 1903
The Ford Motor Company is weeks old and nearly broke — about $223 left in the bank. Then a Chicago dentist named Ernst Pfennig orders a two-cylinder Model A for $850. It is the company's very first sale. Within two months Ford has sold 215 cars, and a near-bankrupt startup is on its way to putting the world on wheels. The whole American century almost didn't happen for want of a dentist who wanted a faster way to make house calls.
Source: www.history.com