TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2017

On this day in history: 1801 - A 1235 pound cheese ball was pressed at the farm of Elisha Brown, Jr. The ball of cheese was later loaded on a horse-driven wagon and presented to US President Thomas Jefferson at the White House.

1810 - Colombia declared independence from Spain. 1851 - Gold discoveries at Mt Alexander spark the goldrush in Victoria.

1881 - Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of the Little Big Horn, surrendered to federal troops. (Montana)

1944 - An attempt by a group of German officials to assassinate Adolf Hitler failed. The bomb exploded at Hitler’s Rastenburg headquarters. Hitler was only wounded. 1944 - U.S. President Roosevelt was nominated for an unprecedented fourth term of office at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

1961 - Stop the World, I Want to Get Off opened in London. 1969 - Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. became the first men to walk on the moon. 1969 - Australia’s radio telescope at Parkes transmits the first pictures of the Apollo 11 moon walk.

1974 - Turkish forces invaded Cyprus.

1976 - America’s Viking I robot spacecraft made a successful landing on Mars.

1982 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan pulled the U.S. out of comprehensive test ban negotiations indefinitely. 1985 - Treasure hunters began raising $400 million in coins and silver from the Spanish galleon “Nuestra Senora de Atocha.” The ship sank in 1622 40 miles of the coast of Key West, FL.

1992 - Vaclav Havel, the playwright who led the Velvet Revolution against communism, stepped down as president of Czechoslovakia. 1998 - Russia won a $11.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to help avert the devaluation of its currency.

2003 - In India, elephants used for commercial work began wearing reflectors to avoid being hit by cars during night work.