TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS THURSDAY, JULY 18, the 199th day of 2019. There are 166 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1969, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., left a party on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard with Mary Jo Kopechnee, 28; some time later, Kennedy’s car went off a bridge into the water. Kennedy was able to escape, but Kopechne drowned.
In A.D. 64, the Great Fire of Rome began, consuming most of the city for about a week. (Some blamed the fire on Emperor Nero, who in turn blamed Christians.)
In 1863, during the Civil War, Union troops spearheaded by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, made up of black soldiers, charged Confederate-held Fort Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina. The Confederates were able to repel the Northerners, who suffered heavy losses; the 54th’s commander, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, was among those who were killed.
In 1918, South African anti-apartheid leader and president Nelson Mandela was born in the village of Mvezo.
In 1940, the Democratic National Convention at Chicago Stadium nominated President Franklin D. Roosevelt (who was monitoring the proceedings at the White House) for an unprecedented third term in office; earlier in the day, Eleanor Roosevelt spoke to the convention, becoming the first presidential spouse to address such a gathering.
In 1944, Hideki Tojo was removed as Japanese premier and war minister because of setbacks suffered by his country in World War II. American forces in France captured the Normandy town of St. Lo.
In 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed a Presidential Succession Act which placed the speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tempore next in the line of succession after the vice president.
In 1984, gunman James Huberty opened fire at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, California, killing 21 people before being shot dead by police. Walter F. Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination in San Francisco.
In 1986, the world got its first look at the wreckage of the RMS Titanic resting on the ocean floor as videotape of the British luxury liner, which sank in 1912, was released by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
In 1989, actress Rebecca Schaeffer, 21, was shot to death at her Los Angeles home by obsessed fan Robert Bardo, who was later sentenced to life in prison.
In 1990, Dr. Karl Menninger, the dominant figure in American psychiatry for six decades, died in Topeka, Kansas, four days short of his 97th birthday.
In 1994, a bomb hidden in a van destroyed a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85. Tutsi rebels declared an end to Rwanda’s 14-week-old civil war.
In 2013, once the very symbol of American industrial might, Detroit became the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, its finances ravaged and its neighborhoods hollowed out by a long, slow decline in population and auto manufacturing.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Skating champion and commentator Dick Button is 90. Olympic gold medal figure skater Tenley Albright is 84. Movie director Paul Verhoeven is 81. Musician Brian Auger and singer Dion DiMucci are 80. Actor James Brolin and Baseball Hall-of-Famer Joe Torre are 79. Singer Martha Reeves is 78. Pop-rock musician Wally Bryson (The Raspberries) and country-rock singer Craig Fuller (Pure Prairie League) are 70. Business mogul Richard Branson is 69. Actress Margo Martindale is 68. Singer Ricky Skaggs is 65. Actress Audrey Landers is 63. World Golf Hall-of-Famer Nick Faldo is 62. Rock musician Nigel Twist (The Alarm) is 61. Actress Anne-Marie Johnson is 59. Actress Elizabeth McGovern is 58. Rock musicians John Hermann (Widespread Panic) and Jack Irons are 57. Talk show host-actress Wendy Williams is 55. Actor Vin Diesel is 52. Actor Grant Bowler is 51. Retired NBA All-Star Penny Hardaway is 48. Bluegrass musician Jesse Brock (The Gibson Brothers), alt-country singer Elizabeth Cook and actor Eddie Matos are 47. Dance music singer-songwriter M.I.A. and rock musician Daron Malakian (System of a Down; Scars on Broadway) are 44. Actress Elsa Pataky (“The Fast and the Furious” films) is 43. Rock musician Tony Fagenson (formerly with Eve 6) is 41. Movie director Jared Hess and actor Jason Weaver are 40. Actress Kristen Bell is 39. Actor Michiel Huisman is 38. Rock singer Ryan Cabrera and actress Priyanka Chopra are 37. Christian-rock musician Aaron Gillespie (Underoath) is 36. Actors Chace Crawford and James Norton are 34. Musician Paul Kowert (Punch Brothers) and actor Travis Milne are 33. Bluegrass musician Joe Dean Jr. (formerly with Dailey & Vincent) is 30.