the day in the history

July 15th

971 - Sometime in the late 800s-900s, there lived a man named Swithun or Swithin. He was the Bishop of Winchester in Old England. For some unknown reason - since Bishop Swithin was not particularly famous - his remains were transferred to Winchester Cathedral on this day. It so happened that there was a heavy rainfall on this same day. Some say Bishop Swithin was angry about the move and caused the downpour. From then on, according to an old English adage, if it should rain on July 15th, it will rain for forty days thereafter. "St. Swithin's day, gif ye do rain, for forty days it will remain; St. Swithin's day, an ye be fair, for forty days 'twill rain nae mair."
1876 - George Washington Bradley pitched the first no-hitter in baseball by leading St. Louis to a 2-0 win over Hartford.

1904 - The first Buddhist temple in the United States was established in Los Angeles, CA.

1912 - Jim Thorpe won the decathlon in the Olympic games in Stockholm, Sweden.

1922 - The duck-billed platypus arrived in America, direct from Australia. It was exhibited at the Bronx Zoo in New York City. For those of you who have never seen this unusual mammal, it has webbed feet, a duck's bill, a beaver's tail; is seal-like, yet hairy and it lays eggs. Go figure...

1940 - Robert Wadlow was 8 feet, 11-1/10 inches tall and weighed 439 pounds when he died this day -- at the age of 22.

1942 - Glenn Miller and his band recorded the classic "Jukebox Saturday Night" for Victor Records.

1952 - Singer Patti Page made her TV debut in a summer replacement series for Perry Como. The 15-minute program spotlighted Patti three times each week on CBS.

1960 - "The New York World-Telegram" reported that the average white-collar worker would earn a lifetime income of $200,000 (forty years at $5,000 per year).

1965 - The "Mariner IV" spacecraft sent back the first close-up pictures of the planet Mars.

1965 - Comedy star Joan Rivers married Edgar Rosenberg. Edgar became a favorite target in her comedy routine on stage, TV and in recordings.

1966 - Singer Percy Sledge earned a gold record for "When a Man Loves a Woman". It was his only song to make it to number one (5/28/66) and the only one of five to break into the top ten.

1968 - ABC-TV first presented the serial, "One Life to Live".

1968 - Commercial air travel began between the United States and the U.S.S.R. with the first plane, a Soviet Aeroflot jet, landing at Kennedy International Airport in New York.

1972 - Elton John landed at the top spot on the "Billboard" album chart for the first time as "Honky Chateau" made it to the top for a five-week stay.

1973 - For the first time in two decades, a baseball pitcher won two no-hitters in a season. Nolan Ryan of the California Angels did the trick with his second no-hit victory of the season, a 6-0 romp over the Detroit Tigers. Ryan pitched his first no-hitter of the season against the Kansas City Royals on May 15th.

1978 - Bob Dylan performed before the largest open-air concert audience (for a single artist). Some 200,000 fans turned out to hear Dylan at Blackbushe Airport in England.

1981 - Steven Ford, son of former President Gerald R. Ford, appeared in the much publicized seduction scene of "The Young and the Restless" on CBS-TV. Ford played the part of Andy, the macho maverick.

1985 - Baseball players voted to strike on August 6th if no contract was reached with baseball owners. The strike action turned out to be just a one-day interruption.

1997 - Former Miller Brewing Company executive Jerold Mackenzie was vindicated by a jury in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mackenzie had brought a suit against Miller after the company fired him from his $95,000-a-year job for sexual harassment. He had been commenting on the "Seinfeld" episode, "The Junior Mint", where Seinfeld's TV character can't remember the name of his new girlfriend -- only that it rhymes with a female body part. One of Mackenzie's female co-workers complained to the Miller human resources director after she heard Mackenzie joking about the show.

1997 - Fashion designer Gianni Versace was shot to death on the steps of his mansion in Miami Beach, Florida. Police believe Andrew Phillip Cunanan shot Versace. Cunanan committed suicide a week later on a houseboat about two miles north of the Versace mansion. Cunanan is suspected of killing four other men in a cross-country shooting spree.

July 15th

1410 Poland & Lithuania defeat Teutonic Knights at Tannenberg
1662 Charles II grants charter to establish Royal Society in London
1815 Napoleon Bonaparte captured
1856 Natal established as a British colony separate from Cape Colony
1864 Troop train loaded with Confederate prisoners collided with a
coal train killing 65 and injuring 109 of 955 aboard
1867 SF Merchant's Exchange opens
1869 Margarine is patented in Paris, for use by French Navy
1870 Georgia becomes last confederate to be readmitted to US
1870 Hudson's Bay & Northwest Territories transferred to Canada
1870 Manitoba becomes 5th Canadian province & NW Territories created
1876 Baseballs 1st no-hitter, St Louis' George W Bradley no-hits Hartford
1888 Bandai volcano (Japan) erupts for 1st time in 1,000 years
1890 A Charlois discovers asteroid #294 Felicia
1893 Commodore Perry arrives in Japan
1901 NY Giant Christy Mathewson no-hits St Louis, 5-0
1904 1st Buddhist temple in US established, Los Angeles
1911 46" of rain (begining 7/14) falls in Baguio, Phillipines
1912 British National Health Insurance Act goes into effect
1916 22.22" of rain falls in Altapass NC
1918 2nd Battle of Marne began during WW I
1920 Ruth ties his record of 29 HRs in a season
1922 1st duck-billed platypus publicly exhibited in US, at NY zoo
1929 1st airport hotel opens-Oakland Ca
1933 Wiley Post began 1st solo flight around the world
1937 Japanese attack Marco Polo Bridge, invade China
1940 1st betatron placed in operation, Urbana, Il
1941 Florey & Heatley present freeze dried mold cultures (Pencillin)
1944 Greenwich Observatory damaged by WW II flying bomb
1946 British North Borneo Co transfers rights to British crown
1948 Pres Truman nominated for another term
1949 Czech tennis stars Jaroslav Drobny & Vladimir Cernik, defect to US
1950 K Reinmuth discovers asteroid #1750 Eckert
1952 1st transatlantic helicopter flight begins
1954 1st coml jet transport plane built in US tested (Boeing 707)
1958 Pres Eisenhower sends US troops to Lebanon; they stay 3 months
1960 Balt Orioles' Brooks Robinson goes 5 for 5 including the cycle
1963 Paul McCartney is fined œ17 for speeding
1964 Barry M Goldwater (Sen-R-Az) nominated for president by Republicans
1965 US scientists display close-up photos of Mars from Mariner IV
1967 LA Wolves beat Wash Whips 6-5 in OT to be United Soccer Ass champs
1967 Roberto DeVicenzo of Argentina wins golf's British Open
1968 "One Life to Live" premieres on TV
1968 NJ Americans moved to Comack & become NY Nets (ABA)
1968 Soap opera "One Life To Live" premiers
1969 Cincinnati Red Lee May hits 4 HRs in a doubleheader
1969 Rod Carew ties the record with his 7th steal of home in a season
1970 Denmark beats Italy 2-0 in 1st world female soccer championship
1971 Pres Nixon announces he would visit People's Rep of China
1972 Lee Trevino wins his 2nd consecutive golf's British Open
1973 Calif Angel Nolan Ryan 2nd no-hitter beats Detroit Tigers, 6-0
1973 Ray Davies, announces retirement from Kinks then attempts suicide
1973 Willie McCovey becomes 15th to hit 400 HRs
1975 NL beats AL 6-3 in 46th All Star Game (Milwaukee's County Stadium)
1975 Soyuz 19 & Apollo 18 launched; rendezvous 2 days later
1976 36-hr kidnap of 26 schoolchildren & their bus driver in Calif
1980 Johnny Bench hits his 314th HR as a catcher breaks Yogi Berra's record
1982 Body of Wendy Caulfield, 1st Green River victim, found near Seattle
1982 Columbia flies to Kennedy Space Center via Dyess AFB, Texas
1982 Senate confirms George Shultz as 60th sec of state by vote of 97-0
1983 8 killed, 54 wounded, by Armenian extremists bomb at Orly, France
1984 Hollis Stacy wins her 3rd US women's open golf title
1986 AL beats NL for 2nd time in 15 yrs, winning 57th All-Star Game 3-2
1987 John Poindexter testifies at Iran-Contra hearings
1991 US troops leave northern Iraq

July 15th

1099 The Muslim citizens of Jerusalem surrendered their city to the armies of the FirstCrusade. The Crusaders then proceeded, through misguided religious zeal, to massacrethousands of unarmed men, women and children.
1779 Birth of Clement C. Moore, American Episcopal educator. His fame endures today,not as a theologian, but as the author of a completely mythical poem: 'Twas the Night BeforeChristmas' (1823).
1814 Birth of Edward Caswall, English clergyman and hymn translator. Today we stillsing Caswall's English versions of the hymns 'Jesus, The Very Thought of Thee' and 'WhenMorning Gilds the Skies.'
1823 In Rome, the church known as St Paul's Outside the Walls was destroyed by a fire.Its original edifice was erected in AD 324 by the Roman emperor Constantine.
1951 The First Southern Baptist Church to be constituted in the state of Wyoming wasformed in Casper by a group of families principally related to the oil industry.

July 16th

1790 - The District of Columbia, or Washington, D.C., was established as the permanent seat of the United States Government.
1845 - The New York Yacht Club hosted the first American boating regatta.

1912 - Bradley A. Fiske patented the airplane torpedo. Kids, please, don't try this at home or near electric lines. And stay off the roof, too!

1926 - The first underwater color photographs appeared in National Geographic magazine. The pictures were taken near the Florida Keys.

1934 - The NBC Red radio network premiered the musical drama, Dreams Come True. It was a show about baritone singer Barry McKinley and his novelist sweetheart.

1935 - The first automatic parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City, OK. You could drive up and park for only a nickel in places where parking used to be free.

1945 - Fat Boy, the experimental, plutonium bomb, exploded at 5:30 a.m. in the first U.S. test of an atomic bomb. The mushroom-shaped cloud rose to a height of 41,000 feet above the New Mexico desert at Alamogordo Air Base. All life in a one-mile radius ceased to exist.

1950 - The largest crowd in sporting history -- 199,854 -- watched the World Cup soccer finals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Uruguay defeated Brazil. "Scccoooorrrreeeeee!"

1963 - Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia broke House Speaker Sam Rayburn's record of service in the U.S. Congress, as he celebrated serving 48 years, 8 months and 13 days.

1970 - The Pittsburgh Pirates played their first game at Three Rivers Stadium. The Bucs had spent 61 baseball seasons at Forbes Field. Cincinnati's Reds spoiled the housewarming for the Pirates with a 3-2 win. The game also marked the first time the Pirates wore new double-knit uniforms which became commonplace throughout both the American and National Leagues.

1981 - Jack Nicklaus played his worst round of professional golf. He scored a 13-over-par 83 at the British Open. He came back the next day, however, and whipped the field with a four-under-par 66.

1981 - After 23 years of familiarity with the name, Datsun, executives of Nissan, the Japanese automaker, played with our minds and changed the name of their cars to Nissan. Nissan didn't begin to show up on nameplates in the U.S. until the 1985 models were released.

1981 - Singer Harry Chapin died in a car crash in New York. Chapin, a folk-rock balladeer, was 38. His hit songs included Taxi, W-O-L-D and the million seller, Cat's in the Cradle. He was a champion of the hungry and homeless and organized a massive effort to provide food for the needy. This was his legacy to the world; his work continues by other performers.

1985 - The largest crowd to see a baseball game in Minnesota came out to see Darryl Strawberry of the New York Mets score two runs to lead the National League to a 6-1 victory over the American League. The All-Star Game crowd numbered 54,960. It was the 12th win in 13 games for the National League.

1985 - The All-Star Game, televised this day, was the first program broadcast in stereo by a TV network. The NBC milestone soon led to sound enhancement of other network shows.

1986 - Columbia Records announced that after 28 years with the label, the contract of country star Johnny Cash would not be renewed. Cash recorded 13 hits on the pop music charts from 1956 to 1976 -- all but four on Columbia. The others were on Sam Phillips' Memphis-based label, Sun. Cash's biggest hit for Columbia was "A Boy Named Sue" in 1969.

1990 - An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale devastated the Philippines, killing over 1,600 people. A thousand more were missing. Damage was reported in Manila, Cabanatuan, Baguio and Luzon. It was the worst earthquake in that part of the world since 1976.

1999 - John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard (Massachusetts), killing him, his wife and his sister-in-law. The three had been en route to a Kennedy family wedding. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that Kennedy suffered from spatial disorientation, brought on by a loss of balance in the inner ear. Kennedy's problems were exacerbated by the hazy night sky and his inability to see the horizon. The NTSB also said investigators did not find any mechanical problems with Kennedy's plane, a single-engine Piper Saratoga II.

July 16th

463 Start of Lunar Cycle of Hilarius
622 Origin of the Islamic Era (Muharram 1, 1 AH)
1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa; end of Moslem power in Spain
1439 Kissing is banned in England
1548 La Paz, Bolivia is founded
1769 Father Serra founds Mission San Diego, 1st mission in Calif
1775 John Adams graduates Harvard
1790 Congress establishes District of Columbia
1798 US Public Health Service established & US Marine Hospital authorized
1845 NY Yacht Club holds its 1st regatta
1862 David G Farragut became 1st rear admiral in US Navy
1893 A Charlois discovers asteroid #371 Bohemia
1894 Many negro miners in Alabama killed by striking white miners
1894 Treaty of Aoki-Kimberley signed between Japan & England
1898 A Charlois discovers asteroid #437 Rhodia
1904 Islands of the Manu'a group (Samoa) ceded to US by their chiefs
1909 AL's longest scoreless game, Senators & Tigers 0-0 in 18
1910 J Helffrich discovers asteroid #702 Alauda
1912 Naval torpedo launched from an airplane patented by B.A. Fiske
1920 Gen Amos Fries appointed 1st US army chemical warfare chief
1920 Ruth sets season home run record with 30 en route to 54
1920 US wins Davis Cup sweeping Australia in 5 straight matches
1926 National Geographic takes 1st natural-color undersea photos
1927 Augusto Sandino begins 5«-year war against US occupation of Nicaragua
1934 K Reinmuth discovers asteroid #1334 Lundmarka
1935 1st automatic parking meter in US installed, Oklahoma City, Ok
1936 1st x-ray photo of arterial circulation, Rochester, NY
1936 K Reinmuth discovers asteroids #1395 Aribeda & #1402 Eri
1936 NY Giants are 10« games back in NL, & go on to win the pennant
1941 100ø F (38ø C) highest temperature ever recorded in Seattle Wash
1941 Joe Dimaggio goes 3 for 4, hitting in his 56th straight game
1945 1st atomic bomb detonated, Trinity Site, Alamogordo, New Mexico
1946 Attempt made to recall Mayor Lapham (1st time in SF history)
1947 Bobo Newsom wins 200th game, 1st as a Yankee & Yanks 18th straight
In the nightcap Vic Rashi extends streak to 19
1948 Leo Durocher changes managership from Dodgers to Giants
1950 Single day 16 team HR record set at 37 (NL-25, AL-12)
1950 Uruguay beats Brazil 2-1 for soccer's 4th World Cup in Rio de Janeiro
1951 Novel "Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger published
1955 "Golden Horseshoe Revue" 1st of 50,000+ performances, Disneyland
1956 Detroit Tigers & Briggs Stadium sold for then record $5.5 million
1956 Karelo-Finnish SSR becomes part of Russian SFSR
1956 Last Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus under a canvas tent
1957 Marine Maj John Glenn sets transcontinental speed record (03:28:08)
1960 205,000 (record sports attend) see Brazil-Uruguay World Cup soccer
1960 George Crowe sets record of 12 pinch hit HRs with a runner on
1961 Ralph Boston of the US, sets then long jump record at 27' 2"
1962 NASA civilian test pilot Joseph A Walker takes X-15 to 32,600 m
1967 Prison brawl ignites barracks, killing 37 (Jay, Florida)
1969 Apollo 11, carrying 1st men to land on the Moon, launched
1970 Pitts Pirates replaces Forbes Field with 3 River Stadium
1973 During Watergate hearings, Butterfield reveals existence of tapes
1974 Felix Aguilar Observatory discovers asteroid #2964
1976 Rock duo Loggins & Messina break-up after 6 years
1980 Ronald Reagan nominated for Pres by Republicans in Detroit
1981 Shukuni Sasaki spins 72 plates simultaneously
1982 NASA launches Landsat 4 to thematic map the Earth
1983 20 killed in Britain's worst helicopter accident
1985 F-86 Sabre sets world aircraft speed record of 1152 kph (716 mph)
1985 NL beats AL 6-1 in th All Star Game (HHH Metrodome, Minn)
1987 Don Mattingly hits his 4th grand slam of the season & ties AL record
of homers in 6 straight games (on way to tie major league record of 8)
1988 Carl Lewis runs a wind-assisted 100 m in 9.78 sec
1988 Florence Joyner runs 100 m in women's world record 10.49 seconds
1988 Jackie Joyner-Kersee sets women's hepathlete record of 7,215 pts
1988 Michael J Fox marries Tracy Pollan
1988 San Antonio (Texas League) beats Jackson 1-0 in 26 innings
1988 Wayne Gretzky (NHL) & Janet Jones (Police Acad 5) wed in Edmonton
1990 400 die in a (7.7) earthquake in the Philippines
1990 NYC's Empire State Building catches fire-No fatalities
1990 Rick Dee's "Into the Night," premiers on ABC-TV

July 16th

1054 The 'Great Schism' between the Western and Eastern churches began over rivalclaims of universal pre-eminence. (In 1965, 911 years later, Pope Paul VI and PatriarchAthenagoras I met to declare an end to the schism.)
1769 Spanish Franciscan missionary Father Junipero Serra founded the San Diego deAlcala mission in California -- the first permanent Spanish settlement on America's westcoast.
1863 Birth of Howard E. Smith, American church organist and composer of the melody tothe popular hymn, 'Love Lifted Me.'
1931 Death of C. T. Studd, 69, pioneer English missionary. He was one of the 'CambridgeSeven,' and worked on the mission field in China, India and Central Africa.
1944 German Lutheran theologian and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letterfrom prison: 'One has to live for some time in a community to understand how Christ is"formed" in it (Gal 4:19).'

July 16th

1914 First commercial flight in Australia
On this day, Maurice Guillaux became the first pilot in Australia to use an aircraft for commercial purposes.


1900 Russian massacre at Heilongjiang
On this day, Russian troops (police and volunteers) at Heilongjiang, China, rounded up Chinese inhabitants who were then ordered to march to a Russian controlled camp. Those who straggled behind were axed to death. This takeover occurred after Russian troops had crossed the Amur River and occupied Manchuria, as part of the international effort to subdue the Chinese Boxer uprising. Foreign forces had arrived to help the Qing dynasty fight off the rebellion. The Chinese, in garrisons on the northern side of the Amur River, were rounded up, herded to shore, and then made to cross. Afterwards, the Russians crossed the river themselves, looting and burning the Chinese towns of Sakhalian and Aigun.

1979: Sandinista rebels take Nicaraguan capital

The left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front takes control of the Central American republic after 46 years of dictatorial rule by the Somoza family.

Emergency services attending the scene 1974: Bomb blast at the Tower of London
An explosion in the Tower of London leaves one person dead and 41 injured.

Stirling Moss 1955: Moss claims first Grand Prix victory
Stirling Moss has won the British Grand Prix at the Aintree track near Liverpool - the first time an Englishman has triumphed in the race.

Thomas Ward 1987: Ex-Guinness boss owes millions
Former Guinness director Thomas Ward is ordered to repay £5.2m to the brewing giants.

Photo of shoppers at a Tesco supermarket 2000: Tesco bows to imperial pressure
British supermarket Tesco is to revive imperial measures in its stores.

1926 The first underwater color photographs appeared in "National Geographic" magazine. The pictures had been taken near the Florida Keys.
1935 Oklahoma City became the first city in the U.S. to make use of parking meters.
1945 The United States detonated the first atomic bomb in a test at Alamogordo, NM.
1951 J.D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, was first published.
1957 Marine Major, John Glenn, set a transcontinental speed record when he flew a jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds.
1969 Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, FL, and began the first manned mission to land on the moon.
1973 Alexander P. Butterfield informed the Senate committee investigating the Watergate affair of the existence of recorded tapes.
1979 Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq after forcing Hasan al-Bakr to resign.
1985 The All-Star Game, televised on NBC-TV, was the first program broadcast in stereo by a TV network.
1999 The plane of John F. Kennedy Jr., crashed off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, MA. His wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, were also on board the plane. The body of John Kennedy was found on July 21, 1999.

July 17th

561 John III begins his reign as Catholic Pope
855 St Leo IV ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1549 Jews are expelled from Ghent Belgium
1775 1st military hospital approved
1794 African Church of St Thomas in Philadelphia, dedicated
1794 Richard Allen organizes Phila's Bethel African Meth Episcopal Church
1841 British humor magazine "Punch" 1st published
1850 Harvard Observatory takes 1st photograph of a star (Vega)
1856 Sunday school excursion train collides killing 46 children (Phila)
1861 Congress authorizes paper money
1862 US army authorized to accept blacks as laborers
1863 Battle of Honey Springs, largest battle of war in Indian Territory
1864 CSA President Davis replaces Gen Joe Johnston with John Bell Hood
1867 1st permanent university dental school in US, Harvard
1879 1st railroad opens in Hawaii
1897 1st ship arrives in Seattle carrying gold from the Yukon
1898 Spanish American War-Spaniads surrender to US at Santiago Cuba
1902 Baltimore (AL) didn't have enough men to field their team
1914 NY Giants beat Pitts Pirates, 3-1, in 21 innings
1917 British Royal family changes its name from Hanover to Windsor
1918 Longest errorless game, Cubs beat Phillies 2-1 in 21 innings
1919 Yanks 21 hits, Browns 17 hits Browns win 7-6 in 17, on squeeze play
1923 Carl Mays gave up 13 runs & 20 hits in 13-0 lose to Indians
1924 St Louis Card Jesse Haines no-hits Boston Braves, 5-0
1935 Variety's famous headline "Sticks Nix Hick Pix"
1938 Douglas (Wrong Way) Corrigan leaves NY for LA, wound up in Ireland
1941 Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak ends
1942 3' of rain falls on Pennsylvania, flooding kills 15
1942 Estimated 87.5 cm (34.5") of rainfall, Smethport, Pa. (state record)
1944 2 ammunition ships explodes at Port Chicago, California kills 322
1945 Potsdam Conference (FDR, Stalin, Churchill) holds 1st meeting
1946 Resistance leader Mikhailovich executed by Tito regime
1948 C A Wirtanen discovers asteroid #1685 Toro
1948 Proclamation of the constitution of the Republic of (South) Korea
1954 1st major league game where majority of team is black (Dodgers)
1954 Construction begins on Disneyland. . .
1955 . . . Disneyland opens its doors in rural Orange County
1955 Arco, Idaho becomes 1st US city lit by nuclear power
1959 2,000 ft long by 1,300 foot wide section of ridge falls into Madis River Canyon extending man-made Lake Hebgen by 5 miles. (Montana)
1959 Dr Leakey discovers oldest human skull (600,000 years old)
1959 Tibet abolishes serfdom

1961 John Chancellor becomes news anchor of the Today Show
1961 Roger Maris loses a HR (of his 61) due to a rain-out in 5th
Ford Frick rules that if anyone breaks Babe Ruth 60 HR record, it
must be done in 1st 154 games
1962 Robert White in X-15 sets altitude record of 108 km (354,300 ft)
1962 Senate rejects medicare for the aged
1964 Don Campbell sets record for turbine vehicle, 690.91 kph (429.31 mph)
1966 Jim Ryun sets mile record (3m51s3)
1966 Pioneer 7 launched
1967 Monkees perform at Forest Hills NY, Jimi Hendrix is opening act
1967 Race riots in Cairo Illinois
1968 Beatle's animated film "Yellow Submarine" premiers in London
1968 Revolt in Iraq
1970 30,000 attend Randall's Island Rock Festival, NYC
1972 1st 2 women begin training as FBI agents at Quantico
1974 1st quadrophinic studio in UK is open by the Moody Blues
1974 Bob Gibson becomes 2nd pitcher to strike-out 3,000
1974 John Lennon is ordered to leave the US in 60 days
1975 Apollo 18 & Soyuz 19 make 1st US/USSR linkup in space
1975 Ringo Starr & Maureen Cox divorce
1976 21st modern Olympic games opens in Montr‚al
1976 ABA merges into the NBA
1978 Reggie Jackson refusal to bunt causes mgr Billy Martin to suspend him
1979 NL beats AL 7-6 in 50th All Star Game (Kingdome Seattle)
1979 Sebastian Coe runs world record 3:49 mile in Oslo
1980 Ronald Reagan formally accepts Republican nomination for president
#3341 Hartmann, #3452 Hawke & #3696 Herald
E Bowell discovers asteroids #2554 Skiff, #2555 Thomas, #2587 Gardner,
1981 Humbar Estuary Bridge, UK, world's longest span (1.4 km), opens
1981 Lobby Walkways at KC's Hyatt Regency collapse 114 die, 200 injured
Fulton County (Atlanta) grand jury indicts Wayne B William 23 year
old photographers, for murder of 2 of 28 blacks killed in Atlanta
1983 1st USFL championship (Mich Panthers beats Phila Stars 24-22)
1984 Soyuz T-12 carries 3 cosmonauts to space station Salyut 7
1987 10 teens die in Guadalupe River flood (Comfort, Tx)
1988 Florence Griffith Joyner of USA sets the 100m woman's record (10.49)
1988 Highest temperature ever recorded in San Francisco, 103ø F (39ø C)
1989 Paul McCartney releases "This One"
1990 Hussein's Revolutionary Day speech claims Kuwait stole oil from Iraq
1990 NY Yankee Deion Sanders hits an inside the park homer
but lose to the Boston Red Sox 1-0
Minn Twins become 1st team to turn 2 triple plays in a game

July 17th

1862 - National cemeteries were authorized by the U.S. government on this day. Arlington National Cemetery, located just outside Washington, D.C. in Virginia, is one of the most honored in the country. In addition to those who died in battle, other war veterans, including U.S. Presidents and government leaders, are buried there. Arlington National Cemetery also houses the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in honor of those who lay unidentified on the battlefields of freedom.
1866 - Authorization was given to build a tunnel beneath the Chicago River. The project was completed three years later at a cost of $512,709.

1867 - Harvard School of Dental Medicine was established in Boston, MA. It was the first dental school in America.

1901 - Dr. Willis Carrier installed a commerical air conditioning system at a Brooklyn, NY printing plant. The system was the first to provide man-made control over temperature, humidity, ventilation and air quality. It was originally installed to help maintain quality at the printing plant and for the first two decades of the 20th Century, Carrier's invention was used primarily to cool machines, not people. The development of the centrifugal chiller by Carrier in the early 1920s led to comfort cooling for movie theaters (remeber the marquees with "It's cool inside"?) and, before long, air conditioning came to department stores, office buildings and railroad cars. Cool...

1920 - Sinclair Lewis finished the now-famous novel, Main Street.

1939 - Charlie Barnet and his orchestra recorded Cherokee for Bluebird Records. Listen carefully and you'll hear the horn of Billy May on the piece.

1941 - The hitting streak of Joe DiMaggio came to an end after 56 games. The Yankee slugger couldn't get a hit. Since May 16th, he batted at an average of .408. He hit 19 homers during the streak. Two pitchers were responsible for putting the skids on DiMaggio's hitting streak: Al Smith and Jim Bagby of the Cleveland Indians. After a day off, Joltin' Joe resumed his hitting ways, in a shorter, but still impressive, 14-game streak.

1954 - The first Newport Jazz Festival was held on the grass tennis courts of the Newport Casino in Newport RI. Eddie Condon and his band played Muskrat Ramble as the opening number of the world's first jazz fest.

1954 - The Brooklyn Dodgers took to the field, making history as the first team with a majority of black players.

1955 - Disneyland opened the gates to "The Happiest Place on Earth" in Anaheim, California. In the famous theme park's first year of operation, some four million people visited Main Street USA, Fantasyland, Frontierland and Tomorrowland. On its opening day, Disneyland held a gala TV broadcast featuring Walt Disney, Bob Cummings, Art Linkletter and Ronald Reagan.

1961 - John Chancellor became the on-air host of the Today show on NBC-TV. Chancellor replaced Dave Garroway, who had resigned after 10 years of early morning duty on the popular program.

1961 - Ty Cobb died of cancer at age 74. Cobb was considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time.

1961 - Rocker Bobby Lewis was starting week #2 of a seven-week stay at number one (one, one, one) on the pop-music charts with his smash, Tossin' and Turnin'. Lewis, who grew up in an orphanage, learned to play the piano at age 5. He became popular in the Detroit, MI area before moving on to fame and fortune with Beltone Records.

1968 - The Beatles' feature-length cartoon, Yellow Submarine, premiered at the London Pavilion. The song, Yellow Submarine, had been a #2 hit for the supergroup (9/17/66) and was the inspiration for the movie.

1981 - Two skywalks suspended from the ceiling over the atrium lobby at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, MO collapsed, killing 114 people. Five years later, two design engineers were convicted for their gross negligence.

1984 - Hector Camacho, previously undefeated, lost the WBC junior-lightweight boxing crown because he could no longer make the 130-pound fighting limit. He moved into the 135-pound class for lightweight competition.

1985 - The nation's second largest banking company, Bank of America of San Francisco, CA, reported a second-quarter loss of $338 million.

1986 - The largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history took place as LTV Corporation asked for court protection from more than 20,000 creditors. LTV Corp. had debts in excess of $4 billion.

1996 - TWA (Trans World Airlines) flight 800, carrying 230 people, including four cockpit crew members and 14 flight attendants, exploded, falling into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Long Island, New York. The Boeing 747 had lifted off from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport at 8:19 p.m. bound for Paris, France. The explosion happened about 26 minutes later, some 40 miles east of New York, as the plane was climbing through 13,800 feet. The victims included celebrities in sports, entertainment and the arts, business people, and vacationers. Possibly the most poignant were the deaths of sixteen teen-agers, all students from the Montoursville, PA high school French club, and their five chaperones. There are several theories as to the cause of the explosion. Some believe that the airliner was sabotaged and destroyed by a bomb planted on board. Others swore they knew the plane had been struck by a U.S. missile. But, after a 16-month probe, the FBI announced it had found no evidence of a criminal act or stray (or otherwise) missile. It has concluded that the crash was caused by electrical arcing in the plane's center fuel tank igniting fuel vapors.

1998 - Just after seven in the evening, the inhabitants of the West Sepik area of Papua New Guinea felt the tremors from a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. Eye-witnesses reported that minutes later the villages were hit in quick succession by three tsunami (tidal waves) reaching heights of 14 meters (45 feet: taller than a four-story building), followed by two smaller waves. More than 2,000 people were killed and some 10,000 left homeless. In addition, many of the survivors were badly injured, with broken bones and bruising. Costas Synolakis, a researcher at UCLA and co-leader of a science team that visited PNG in early August 1998: "We were in a state of shock. It was really something we had not seen before. It was sort of a new threshold in terms of what a wave can do."

July 17th

1976 Indonesia annexes Portuguese East Timor
Indonesian President Suharto signed a bill on this day, establishing East Timor as the 27th province of Indonesia. This ended more that 400 years of Portuguese rule in the area.


1952 Mohamed Mossadegh resigns
After being denied control of the army by the Shah of Iran, Premier Mohamed Mossadegh resigned from his post. As his reason for stepping down, he cited the lack of confidence that the denial of military control indicated.

2003: Missing Iraq expert - body found

A body believed to be that of government scientist Dr David Kelly is found in Oxfordshire - an inquiry will be held into his death.

Photo of the area where Sarah Payne's body was discovered 2000: Sarah Payne's body found
Police confirm the body they found in a West Sussex field yesterday is that of missing eight-year old Sarah Payne.

Richard Speck during a court appearance in Chicago - Dec 1966 1966: Nurses murder suspect charged
US police have charged a seaman with the murder of eight student nurses in their hostel in Chicago.

Photograph of demonstrators in Dublin 1981: Violence erupts at Irish hunger strike protest
Nearly 200 people are in hospital in Dublin after a hunger strike demonstration turned violent.

Photo of Patricia Cahill who was accused of drug smuggling 1990: English teenagers held in Thailand over drugs
Two teenage girls from the Midlands are arrested for drug smuggling in Thailand.

1815 Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to the British at Rochefort, France.
1866 Authorization was given to build a tunnel beneath the Chicago River. The three year project cost $512,709
1867 Harvard School of Dental Medicine was established in Boston, MA. It was the first dental school in the U.S.
1917 The British royal family adopted the Windsor name.
1945 U.S. President Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II. During the meeting Stalin made the comment that "Hitler had escaped."
1955 Disneyland opened their gates in Anaheim, CA.
1975 An Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit. It was the first link up between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
1979 Nicaraguan President, Anastasio Somoza, resigned and fled to Miami in exile.
1996 230 people were killed when TWA Flight 800 exploded and crashed off Long Island, NY.
1997 After 117 years, the Woolworth Corp. closed its last 400 stores.
1998 Nicholas II, the last of Romanov czars, was buried in Russia 80 years after he and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.
1998 An entire village was swept away in Papua New Guinea by a 23-foot wave that was triggered by an undersea earthquake. Eight days later the government reported that 1,500 people were dead, 2,000 were missing and thousands were homeless.

July 18th

64 Great Fire of Rome begins (Nero didn't fiddle)
390 -BC- Battle of Allia-Gauls inflict heavy casualties on Romans
1536 Pope's authority declared void in England
1716 Jews are expelled from Brussels Belgium
1753 Lemuel Haynes, escapes from slaveholder in Framingham Mass
1814 British capture Prairie du Chien (Wisc)
1853 1st train to cross the US-Canada boundary, Portland, Me.-Montr‚al, PQ
1853 Completion of Grand Trunk Line, Americas 1st intl railroad
1872 Britain introduces secret ballot voting
1904 P Gotz discovers asteroid #538 Friederike
1913 After 68 straight innings Christy Mathewson gives up a walk
1914 US army air service 1st comes into being, in the Signal Corps
1915 Boston Braves start move from last place to become world series champs
1918 US & French forces launch Aisne-Marne offensive in WW I
1927 Ty Cobb's 4,000th career hit
1931 1st air-conditioned ship (Mariposa) launched
1932 US & Canada signed a treaty to develop St Lawrence Seaway
1936 Spanish Civil War begans, Gen Francisco Franco led uprising
1938 Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan arrives in Ireland-left NY for Calif
1940 1st successful helicopter flight, Stratford, Ct
1942 1st legal NJ horse race in 50 years; Garden State Park track opens
1942 Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe, 1st jet fighter, takes 1st flight
1947 Tigers shut out Yanks 2-0, end 19 game win streak
1947 US receives UN trusteeship over Pacific Islands
1948 Pat Seerey of Chicago White Sox hits 4 HRs in a game
1951 Jersey Joe Walcott at 37 becomes oldest to win heavyweight champion
1951 Jersey Joe Walcott KOs Ezzard Charles in 5 for heavyweight belt
1951 Uruguay accepts its constitution
1954 Cards losing 8-1 to Phillies begin stalling in 5th, they forefeit game
1955 1st electric power generated from atomic energy sold commercially
1959 1st black to win a major golf tournament (William Wright)
1960 Baseball's NL votes to add Houston & NY franchises
1964 Race riot in Harlem (NYC); riots spread to Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bkln)
1965 Zond 3 launched to fly by Moon, enters solar orbit
1966 Carl Sagan turns 1 billion seconds old
1966 Gemini 10 launched
1967 Silver hits record $1.87 an ounce in NY
1968 C Torres discovers asteroid #2654 Ristenpart
1968 Intel incorporates
#1974 Caupolican, #1992 Galvarino & #2028 Janequeo
C Torres & S Cofre discovers asteroid #1973 Colocolo,
1969 Joe Namath agrees to sell interest in Bachelors 3, to stay in NFL
1969 Mary Jo Kopechne & Sen Kennedy plunge off Chappaquiddick bridge
1970 Arthur Brown arrested for stripping on stage in Palemo Sicily
1970 Ron Hunt gets hit by a pitch for a record 119th time
1970 Willie Mays hits # 3,000
1972 200,000 attend Mt Pocono rock festival in Penns
1974 World's tallest structure, 646-m Polish radio mast, completed
1975 Jury can't decide on trial of Dave Fopbes of Boston Bruins
(1st athlete indicted for excessive violence during play)
1976 Thiokol conducts 2-min firing of space shuttle's SRB at Brigham, Ut
1978 Billy Martin suspends Reggie Jackson for not bunting
1978 Egyptian & Israeli officials begin 2 days of talks
1979 Gold hits record $303.85 an ounce in London
1980 Billy Joel's Glass Houses album tops charts
1980 Rohini 1, 1st Indian satellite, launches into orbit
1984 James Huberty kills 21 McDonalds patrons in San Ysidro Calif
1984 Walter F Mondale wins Democratic presidential nomination in SF
1986 Videotapes released showing Titanic's sunken remains
1987 Molly Yard elected new pres of Natl Org for Women
1987 Yanks Don Mattingly ties major league record of HRs in 8 cons games

July 18th

1504 Birth of Heinrich Bullinger, Swiss reformer. He continued Zwingli's work afterhis death at Kappel (1531), and composed the Second Helvetic Confession in 1566.
1753 Birth of Lemuel Haynes, colonial American Congregational clergyman. In 1785,Haynes, 32, was ordained to a church in Torrington, Connecticut, making him the firstAfrican-American to pastor a white church.
1870 The Vatican I Ecumenical Council issued the proclamation 'Pastor Aeternus,'declaring the pope's primacy and infallibility in deciding faith and moral matters. (FewProtestants agree with this doctrine.)
1876 American philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson noted: 'Great men are theywho see that spiritual is stronger than material, that thoughts rule the world.'
1944 German theologian and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from prison: 'Thereligious act is always something partial; "faith" is something whole, involving the wholeof one's life. Jesus calls us not to new religion but to life.'

July 18th

1988 Iran accepts UN Resolution 598
On this day, the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq ended when Iran accepted UN Resolution 598, and Iraq regained its territories.


1914 Incident on the Komagata Maru
A challenge to Canada's anti-Indian immigration laws culminated on this day, in an insurrection aboard the steamship Komagata Maru. A group of 400 Sikh nationalists decided to test the Canadian law of "continuous passage," which stated that Indian immigrants had to come to Canada by continuous passage from their home country. However, this was impossible, as no steamship lines provided direct service between the two nations. The Sikhs chartered a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru, and sailed from Calcutta to Vancouver via Hong Kong. Canadian officials detained the passengers on board for two months before attempting to force the ship to return. Their first attempt failed when the Sikhs drove off the Canadian boarding party. Finally, a Canadian armed cruiser was called in and the Komagata Maru was forced to head back to Calcutta. The incident strengthened Indian nationalist feelings, but did not significantly soften Canadian immigration law.

July 18th

1991 St. John's, Newfoundland - Archbishop Alphonsus Penny offers his resignation after release of report blaming church officials for covering up sexual abuse by Catholic priests.
1991 London England - Brian Mulroney 1939- tells Mikhail Gorbachev Canada will lift freeze on $150 million in food credits imposed during Baltic crackdown; also offers $10 million technical assistance package.
1991 Vancouver BC - Rita Johnston wins Social Credit leadership, edging party matriarch Grace McCarthy 941-881 on second ballot; other candidates McCarthy, Jacobsen, Couvelier and Crandall.
1991 Montreal Quebec - Marcellus François dies 2 weeks after shooting by Sgt. Michel Tremblay; black youth mistaken for murder suspect; Harvey Yanovsky appointed July 25 to head coroner's inquest.
1990 Toronto Ontario - Johnny Wayne dies at age 72; partner of Frank Schuster in comedy duo Wayne & Schuster; started touring for the Canadian army in World War II; born John Louis Weingarten in Toronto.
1990 Montreal Quebec - Gerry Boulet dies at age 44; singer and keyboardist with French rock band Offenbach; as a solo artist, he won two Felix awards.
1981 New York City - Canadian blues artist Rick James' single 'Give It To Me Baby' peaks at #40 on the Billboard pop singles chart.
1979 Ottawa Ontario - Canada to sponsor up to 50,000 Vietnamese Boat People; equal number can enter Canada under private sponsorship.
1977 Ottawa Ontario - Parliament passes law to control purchase and use of firearms, and increase police wiretapping powers.
1976 Montreal Quebec - Olympic events start in Montreal; Taiwan refused entry; 19 nations absent to protest New Zealand's rugby tour of South Africa.
1973 Mississauga Ontario - Christine Demeter found bludgeoned to death in her home; husband of former fashion model later convicted of hiring an assailant to kill her, to collect $ 1 million insurance policy.
1970 Montreal Quebec - Willie Mays becomes the 10th major league baseball player to get career hit number 3,000, off Mike Wegener in the second inning of the San Francisco Giants' 10-1 victory over the Montreal Expos.
1968 Vancouver BC - Bank of British Columbia opens its first branch office.
1968 Canada - 24,000 postal workers start three-week nation-wide strike; ends Aug. 9.
1966 Quebec - Non-medical workers at Quebec hospitals strike for more pay.
1959 Ottawa Ontario - Government to create National Energy Board, with powers over oil, natural gas, and electricity.
1958 Washington DC - Sidney Earle Smith 1897-1959 meets British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, and US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles; External Affairs Minister discusses Middle East.
1945 Halifax Nova Scotia - Naval ammunition barge catches fire in Bedford Basin; the magazine explodes for 24 hours causing evacuation of half the city's population; $4 million damage but no loss of life.
1944 Caen France - Bomber Command sends 100 RAF and RCAF planes to attack German defenses around Caen; much of the city destroyed and up to 3,000 French killed; Canadians and British gain a few miles in attacks beyond Caen in Operation Goodwood/Atlantic to secure Vaucelles and Colombelles, preparing the way to break through the triangle to Falaise; the 2nd Infantry under Maj. Gen. Charles Foulkes comes into line to join the 3rd and 2nd Armoured Brigade of Lt. Gen. Guy Simonds' 2nd Corps and they move forward to take the German stronghold on the Verrières Ridge.
1932 Washington DC - Canada and US sign treaty laying the groundwork to develop the St. Lawrence Seaway.
1929 PEI - Prince Edward Island plebiscite sustains prohibition of alcoholic beverages.
1928 British Columbia - Simon Fraser Tolmie 1867-1937 leads Conservatives to win in BC provincial election.
1922 Quebec Quebec - Joseph-Elzéar Bernier leaves Quebec City in command of the Canadian Government Arctic Expedition, sent to assert Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic.
1921 Alberta - Herbert Greenfield wins provincial election as head of the United Farmers of Alberta; succeeded as Premier in 1925 by John Brownlee, until 1935.
1916 Waterton Lake Alberta - John George 'Kootenai' Brown 1839-1916 dies at his home on Waterton Lake; born in County Clare, Ireland, during the potato famine; served in India with the British Army, sold his commission in 1861, and prospected for gold in the Cariboo; worked as a Pony Express rider in the Dakota and Montana territories; married Metis woman Olive Lyonnais in 1869, and joined her people in the buffalo hunt, then ran a small trading post on the shores of Waterton Lake (which he called Kootenay Lake after the original inhabitants) and guided hunters and visitors. Brown lobbied for the establishment of Kootenay National Forest in 1895, and served as fishery officer and forest ranger. In 1911, the government created Waterton Lakes National Park.
1913 Vancouver BC - Sikh immigration from India causes race riots in Vancouver.
1905 Ottawa Ontario - Parliament passes Act creating the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan out of the North West Territory.
1853 Toronto Ontario - The Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Railroad starts operating to Brantford, Ontario.
1853 Montreal Quebec - Trains start running over first North American international railroad between Portland, Maine and Montreal.
1818 Red River Manitoba - Grasshoppers plague Red River, hiding the sun and devouring everything green; staple potato crop of settlers and livestock completely destroyed in just a few minutes.
1814 Ancaster Ontario - Eight traitors captured during the War of 1812 are hanged at Ancaster, Upper Canada; two days later, their headless bodies are put on public display to discourage disloyalty to the British Crown.
1814 Prairie du Chien, Iowa - William McKay marches south with 150 Michigan Fencibles and party of Green Bay Indians; captures Prairie du Chien, and the US gunboat Governor Clark.
1812 River Canard USA - British victory at River Canard; War of 1812.
1809 Montreal Quebec - Judge sentences two Montreal women to 25 lashes for disorderly conduct.
1796 Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario - Peter Russell 1733-1808 appointed President of the Council of Upper Canada; acting administrator.
1739 Quebec - Census shows population of New France to be 42,701.
1628 Gaspé Quebec - David & Lewis Kirke attack French supply fleet of Company of 100 Associates under command of Claude Roquemont de Brison.

1997: IRA declares ceasefire

The IRA makes a surprise announcement of a ceasefire in Northern Ireland - the second in three years.

Dinosaur 1983: Flesh-eating dinosaur resurrected
19 July

A gigantic new dinosaur skeleton is unveiled to the media at the Natural History Museum in London.

Fish trawler 1976: Fight for fishing rights in Europe
British fishermen are urging the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Crosland, to secure a 50-mile fishing zone around the UK.

Syngman Rhee 1965: S Korea's first president dies in exile
The former leader of the Republic of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, has died in exile in the US state of Hawaii at the age of 90.