TODAY in HISTORY

Today is Thursday, July 13, the 193rd day of 2018. There are 172 days left in the year.

1497 Vasco da Gama sets sail on the first direct European voyage to India.

1579 Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, is discovered underground in the city of Kazan, Tatarstan. 1663 Charles II of England grants John Clarke a Royal charter to Rhode Island.

1775 The Olive Branch Petition is signed by the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies of North America. 1808 Joseph Bonaparte approves the Bayonne Statute, a royal charter intended as the basis for his rule as king of Spain. 1822 Chippewas turn over a huge tract of land in Ontario to the United Kingdom. 1859 King Charles XV & IV accedes to the throne of Sweden– Norway. 1874 The Mounties begin their March West. 1876 White supremacists kill five Black Republicans in Hamburg, South Carolina. 1879 Sailing ship USS Jeannette departs San Francisco carrying an ill- fated expedition to the North Pole.

1892 St. John’s, Newfoundland is devastated in the Great Fire of 1892. 1910 Vinayak Damodar Savarkar escaped through a porthole from the ship and swam ashore. 1912 Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Couceiro leads an unsuccessful royalist attack against the First Portuguese Republic in Chaves. 1932 The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.

1937 Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan sign the Treaty of Saadabad. 1947 Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico in what became known as the Roswell UFO incident. 1960 Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union. 1962 Ne Win besieges and dynamites the Rangoon University Student Union building to crush the Student Movement. 1968 The Chrysler wildcat strike begins in Detroit, Michigan. 1972 Israeli Mossad assassinate Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani. 1982 Assassination attempt against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Dujail.

2011 Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U. S. Space Shuttle program.

2014 Israel launches an offensive on Gaza amid rising tensions following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers.

2014 Plínio de Arruda Sampaio, Brazilian lawyer and politician ( b. 1930)