TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 2017

On this day in history: 1525 - The Catholic princes of Germany formed the Dessau League to fight against the Reformation.

1553 - Fifteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey was deposed as Queen of England after claiming the crown for nine days. Mary, the daughter of King Henry VIII, was proclaimed Queen.

1788 - Prices plunged on the Paris stock market.

1799 - The Rosetta Stone, a tablet with hieroglyphic translations into Greek, was found in Egypt.

1814 - Matthew Flinders, the first explorer to circumnavigate Australia, dies.

1870 - France declared war on Prussia.

1916 - Australia begins its worst 24 hours in history, with the loss of almost 2000 men in a single night.

1942 - German U-boats were withdrawn from positions off the U.S. Atlantic coast due to effective American anti-submarine countermeasures.

1943 - During the Second World War, more than 150 B-17 and 112 B-24 bombers attacked Rome for the first time.

1946 - Marilyn Monroe acted in her first screen test. 1979 - In Nicaragua, the dictatorship of the Somozas was overthrown by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or FSLN). 1984 - Geraldine Ferraro was nominated by the Democratic Party to become the first woman from a major political party to run for the office of U.S. Vice-President.

1985 - Christa McAuliffe of New Hampshire was chosen to be the first schoolteacher to ride aboard the space shuttle. She died with six others when the Challenger exploded the following year.