TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS SATURDAY, JULY 21, 2018

On this day in history:

1831 - Belgium became independent as Leopold I was proclaimed King of the Belgians.

1858 - Adelaide and Melbourne are linked by the first intercolonial electric telegraph line.

1904 - Construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, connecting European Russia with the Pacific coast, is completed.

1940 - Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia were annexed by the Soviet Union.

1944 - American forces landed on Guam during World War II. 1954 - The Geneva Conference partitioned Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam. 1968 - Arnold Palmer became the first golfer to make a million dollars in career earnings after he tied for second place at the PGA Championship.

1969 - The CSIRO Observatory in Parkes, Australia, transmits the first pictures of the Apollo 11 Moon walk to the world. 1987 - Mary Hart, of “Entertainment Tonight”, had her legs insured by Lloyd’s of London for $2 million. 1998 - Chinese gymnast Sang Lan, 17, was paralysed after a fall while practising for the women’s vault competition at the Goodwill Games in New York. Spinal surgery 4 days later failed to restore sensation below her upper chest. 1995 - Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People’s Liberation Army begins firing missiles into the waters north of Taiwan. 2001 - At the conclusion of a fireworks display on Okura Beach in Akashi, Hyōgo, Japan, 11 people are killed and more than 120 are injured when a pedestrian footbridge connecting the beach to JR Asagiri Station becomes overcrowded and people leaving the event fall down in a domino effect.

2005 - London bombings occur.

2008 - Ram Baran Yadav is declared the first president of Nepal.

2011 - NASA’s Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.