HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Wednesday, July 26, the 207th day of 2017. There are 158 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1952 – King Farouk of Egypt abdicates in favour of his son

Fuad. 1953 – Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution. The movement took the name of the date: 26th of July Movement 1953 – Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment repel a number of Chinese assaults against a key position known as The Hook during the Battle of the Samichon River, just hours before the Armistice Agreement is signed, ending the Korean War. 1956 – Following the World Bank’s refusal to fund building the Aswan Dam, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal, sparking international condemnation. 1957 – Carlos Castillo Armas, dictator of Guatemala, is

assassinated. 1968 – Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Ðình Dzu is sentenced to five years hard labor for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war. 1971 – Apollo program: Launch of Apollo 15 on the first Apollo “J-Mission”, and first use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle. 1971 – Nicolette Milnes-Walker completes sailing non-stop single-handedly across the Atlantic, becoming the first woman to successfully do so. 1974 – Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis forms the country’s first civil government after seven years of military rule. 2005 – Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission: Launch of Discovery, NASA’s first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003. 2005 – Mumbai, India receives 99.5cm of rain (39.17 inches) within 24 hours, resulting in floods killing over 5,000 people. 2007 – Shambo, a black cow in Wales that had been adopted by the local Hindu community, is slaughtered due to a bovine tuberculosis infection, causing widespread controversy. 2008 – Fifty-six people are killed and over 200 people are injured

in 21 bomb blasts in Ahmedabad bombing in India. 2009 – The militant Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram attacks a police station in Bauchi, leading to reprisals by the Nigeria Police Force and four days of violence across multiple cities.