July 25 · This Day in America
In San Juan, Governor Luis Muñoz Marín raises the Puerto Rican flag beside the Stars and Stripes and proclaims the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, governed for the first time by a constitution Puerto Ricans wrote, debated, and ratified themselves. The date is not an accident. Fifty-four years earlier to the day, in 1898, American troops had waded ashore at Guánica and claimed the island as a spoil of the Spanish-American War. So Puerto Rico answered that arrival with this one — taking the anniversary of a conquest and making it the birthday of self-government. It is not statehood, and it is not independence, and the argument over what it should be has never stopped. But on this day a people held a pen instead of waiting on a treaty, and signed their own name to their own house.
Source: guides.loc.gov
Also on this day · 1965
Bob Dylan walks onto the Newport Folk Festival stage with a Fender Stratocaster, a backing band, and "Maggie's Farm" cranked loud. The folk faithful — who had crowned him their acoustic conscience — howl and boo. He plays anyway. "Like a Rolling Stone" was five days old. The argument that night was about three minutes and three songs; it turned out to be about whether an artist gets to change.
Source: www.smithsonianmag.com