Born on this day in 1943, Pauline Shirt was a member of Saddle Lake Cree Nation, Alberta. She is remembered as a knowledge keeper, singer, elder, life-long educator and Indigenous rights advocate. In 1976 she founded Kâpapâmahchakwêw / Wandering Spirit School, an alternative education center for her child and other Native youths. The school started in Pauline's home, and was the first school in Canada entirely operated by Native people. It is still open today. Named for Kâpapâmahchakwêw, the Cree war chief who in 1885 defended his peoples and his land, Pauline did not know at the time that she shared lineage with him. She was involved in Native activism her entire life, including organizing the Ontario leg of the Native People’s Caravan to Ottawa in 1974, serving as the Indigenous Knowledge and Wisdom Keeper at downtown Toronto’s George Brown College, and founding the first Indigenous holistic practitioner’s clinic, Red Willow. Swampy Cree Artist Kent Monkman (Fisher River Cree Nation) painted this incredible portrait of her and states that Pauline "carries the song her great-great-great grandfather kapapamahchakwew (Wandering Spirit) sang as he crossed over to the other side on that cold day in the Frost Moon in 1885. The song gives hope and shines a light forward for future generations."

In direct disregard to the requests of the United Indian Nations aka the Northwest Confederacy, US Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance which establishes the Northwest Territory. This established the process by which the US government would enable westward expansion. It also created the Ohio river as the boundary between what would become free states and slave states.

On July 12th, Bruno de Heceta, Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, and Francisco Antonio Mourelle anchored the Santiago and Sonora near Grenville Bay, in what would become Washington State. They sent a large party ashore and claimed the land for Spain, erecting a cross and holding a Catholic ceremony. The next day, a smaller party came ashore to resupply. Quadra reports that this smaller party of six men was attacked by a group of several hundred Quinaults who killed four and wounded the other two such that they succumbed to their injuries while swimming back to the ships. More of the local Quinault then surrounded the ships in canoes as they made an effort to depart through the shoals of the bay.