TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SATURDAY, JULY 30, the 212th day of 2016. There are 154 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1916, German saboteurs blew up a munitions plant on Black Tom, an island near Jersey City, N.J. Although casualties were limited, (about a dozen people were killed), the explosion was so huge it was felt throughout New York City and damaged the Statue of Liberty. In 1729, Baltimore was founded.
In 1864, during the Civil War, Union forces tried to take Petersburg, Va., by exploding a mine shaft filled with gunpowder beneath Confederate defense lines; the attack failed. In 1932, the Summer Olympic Games opened in Los Angeles.
In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill creating a women’s auxiliary agency in the Navy known as “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service” — WAVES for short. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure making “In God We Trust” the national motto, replacing “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of many, one). In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a measure creating Medicare, which began operating the following year.
In 1975, former Teamsters union President Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in suburban Detroit; although he was presumed dead, his remains have never been found. In 1980, Israel’s Knesset passed a law reaffirming all of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is 82. Blues musician Buddy Guy is 80. Movie director Peter Bogdanovich and feminist activist Eleanor Smeal are 77. Former U.S. Rep. Patricia Schroeder is 76. Singer Paul Anka is 75. Jazz musician David Sanborn is 71. Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is 69. Blues singer-musician Otis Taylor is 68. Actor Laurence Fishburne is 55. Actress Vivica A. Fox is 52. Actor Tom Green, rock musician Brad Hargreaves (Third Eye Blind) and actress Christine Taylor are 45. Actor-comedian Dean Edwards is 43. Actress Hilary Swank is 42. Olympic gold medal beach volleyball player Misty May-Treanor and actress Jaime Pressly are 39. Alt-country singer-musician Seth Avett and actress April Bowlby are 36.