By 1675, it had been more than fifty years since the first English settlers landed in New England, establishing the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and others. Relations with the local Indian tribes had been mostly peaceful, but as the English grew in numbers and expanded further, tensions began to rise. Native hostility grew, and things came to a head following the murder of an Indian informer by members of King Philip’s Wampanoag tribe. The English tried and executed three Indians for this crime, moving King Philip to retaliate by attacking Swansee, igniting a full-blown war that would last a year.

After many a New England town and village was raided, and many a colonist and Indian was killed, King Phillip was finally tracked down and killed by a group of colonial rangers and allied Indians led by Captain Benjamin Church. This essentially brought an end to the war, with the exception of a few minor battles in Maine. Relatively speaking, King Phillip’s War was the costliest war in North American history, with one tenth of all able-bodied men in New England being killed, and half of New England’s towns being attacked or raided.

Also, on this day in U.S. history:

1853: President Franklin Pierce signs the Gadsden Purchase, buying 29,670 square-miles of land from Mexico that are now Arizona and New Mexico.

1902: Businessman George Dayton founds what is now Target Corporation as Goodfellow Dry Goods in Minneapolis, MN.

1975: Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashes in turbulent weather, nearly 115 passengers and crew were killed, nine passengers survived but with major injuries.

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