May 9, 1800 -- John Brown is born in Torrington, Connecticut

Daguerreotype taken by African-American photographer Augustus Washington in Springfield, Massachusetts, c. 1846–47. Brown is holding the hand-colored flag of Subterranean Pass Way, his militant counterpart to the Underground Railroad. Public Domain.

John Brown, the militant abolitionist most famous for his failed raid on the U.S. arsenal at  Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), was born May 9, 1800 in Torrington, Connecticut. Brown felt that violence was necessary to end American slavery, as years of speeches, sermons, petitions, and moral persuasion had failed.

Brown first gained national attention when he led anti-slavery volunteers and his own sons during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of the late 1850s, a state-level civil war over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. He was dissatisfied with abolitionist pacifism: "These men are all talk. What we need is action—action!" In May 1856, Brown and his sons killed five supporters of slavery in the Pottawatomie massacre (May 24), a response to the sacking of 

​Lawrence by pro-slavery forces (May 21), and possibly also to the caning of the Free Kansas supporter, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner (May 22). Brown then commanded anti-slavery forces at the Battle of Black Jack (June 2) and the Battle of Osawatomie (August 30, 1856).

In October 1859, Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, intending to start a slave liberation movement that would spread south through the mountainous regions of Virginia and North Carolina; he had prepared a Provisional Constitution for the revised, slavery-free United States he hoped to bring about. He seized the armory, but seven people were killed, and ten or more were injured. Brown intended to arm slaves with weapons from the armory, but very few slaves joined his revolt. Within 36 hours, those of Brown's men who had not fled were killed or captured by local militia and U.S. Marines, the latter led by Robert E. Lee. Brown was hastily tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men, and inciting a slave insurrection. He was found guilty of all counts and was hanged on December 2, 1859, the first person executed for treason in the history of the United States.