Today in History
Today is Friday, July 19, the 201st day of 2024. There are 165 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 19, 1848, the first “Convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of Woman” convened at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y.
Also on this date:
In 1812, during the War of 1812, the First Battle of Sackets Harbor in Lake Ontario resulted in an American victory as U.S. naval forces repelled a British attack.
In 1969, Apollo 11 and its astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins, went into orbit around the moon.
In 1975, the Apollo and Soyuz space capsules that were linked in orbit for two days separated.
In 1979, the Nicaraguan capital of Managua fell to Sandinista guerrillas, two days after President Anastasio Somoza fled the country.
In 1980, the Moscow Summer Olympics began, minus dozens of nations that were boycotting the games because of Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.
In 1989, 111 people were killed when United Air Lines Flight 232, a DC-10 which sustained the uncontained failure of its tail engine and the loss of hydraulic systems, crashed while making an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa; 185 other people survived.
In 1990, baseball’s all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, was sentenced in Cincinnati to five months in prison for tax evasion.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton announced a policy allowing gays to serve in the military under a compromise dubbed “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue.”
In 2006, prosecutors reported that Chicago police beat, kicked, shocked or otherwise tortured scores of Black suspects from the 1970s to the early 1990s to try to extract confessions from them.
In 2005, President George W. Bush announced his choice of federal appeals court judge John G. Roberts Jr. to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. (Roberts ended up succeeding Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in Sept. 2005; Samuel Alito followed O’Connor.)
In 2013, in a rare and public reflection on race, President Barack Obama called on the nation to do some soul searching over the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his shooter, George Zimmerman, saying the slain black teenager “could have been me 35 years ago.”
In 2018, a duck boat packed with tourists capsized and sank in high winds on a lake in the tourist town of Branson, Missouri, killing 17 people.
In 2021, Paul Allard Hodgkins, a Florida man who breached the U.S. Senate chamber on Jan. 6 carrying a Trump campaign flag, received an eight-month prison term; it was the first resolution for a felony case in the January 6th U.S. Capitol insurrection.
In 2022, Britain shattered its record for the highest temperature ever registered amid a heat wave that seared swaths of Europe.
Today’s Birthdays: Civil rights activist and educator Rachel Robinson, widow of baseball’s Jackie Robinson, is 102. Singer Vikki Carr is 84. Blues singer-musician Little Freddie King is 84. Singer-musician Alan Gorrie (Average White Band) is 78. International Tennis Hall of Famer Ilie Nastase is 78. Rock musician Brian May (Queen) is 77. Rock musician Bernie Leadon is 77. Movie director Abel Ferrara is 73. Movie director Atom Egoyan is 64. Actor Campbell Scott is 63. Actor Anthony Edwards is 62. Ukrainian politician and former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko is 53. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch is 48. TV chef Marcela Valladolid is 46. Actor Trai Byers (TV: “Empire”) is 41. Actor Kaitlin Doubleday (TV: “Empire,” “Nashville”) is 39.
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