Today In History

Today is Monday, July 27, the 209th day of 2020. There are 157 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

› 1974: The House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to adopt the first of three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon, charging he had personally engaged in a course of conduct designed to obstruct justice in the Watergate case.

ON THIS DATE

› 1794: French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre was overthrown and placed under arrest; he was executed the following day.

› 1866: Cyrus W. Field finished laying out the first successful underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe (a previous cable in 1858 burned out after only a few weeks’ use).

› 1909: During the first official test of the U.S. Army’s first airplane, Orville Wright flew himself and a passenger, Lt. Frank Lahm, above Fort Myer, Virginia, for 1 hour and 12 minutes.

› 1919: Race-related rioting erupted in Chicago; the violence, which claimed the lives of 23 Blacks and 15 whites, lasted until Aug. 3.

› 1946: American author, poet and publisher Gertrude Stein, 72, died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.

› 1953: The Korean War armistice was signed at Panmunjom, ending three years of fighting.

› 1960: Vice President Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

› 1967: President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission to assess the causes of urban rioting, the same day Black militant H. Rap Brown told a press conference in Washington that violence was “as American as cherry pie.”

› 1976: Air Force veteran Ray Brennan became the first person to die of so-called “Legionnaire’s Disease” following an American Legion convention in Philadelphia.

› 1980: On day 267 of the Iranian hostage crisis, the deposed Shah of Iran died at a military hospital outside Cairo, Egypt, at age 60.

› 1996: Terror struck the Atlanta Olympics as a pipe bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park, directly killing one person and injuring 111. (Anti-government extremist Eric Rudolph later pleaded guilty to the bombing, exonerating security guard Richard Jewell, who had been wrongly suspected.)

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

TV producer Norman Lear is 98. Sportscaster Irv Cross is 81. Actor John Pleshette is 78. Actress-director Betty Thomas is 73. Olympic gold medal figure skater Peggy Fleming is 72. Singer Maureen McGovern is 71. Actress Janet Eilber is 69. Rock musician Tris Imboden (formerly with Chicago) is

69. Actress Roxanne Hart is 66. Country musician Duncan Cameron is 64. Comedian-actress-writer Carol Leifer is 64. Comedian Bill Engvall is 63. Jazz singer Karrin Allyson is 58. Country singer Stacy Dean Campbell is 53. Rock singer Juliana Hatfield is

53. Actor Julian McMahon is 52. Actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is 50. Comedian Maya Rudolph is 48. Rock musician Abe Cunningham is 47. Singer-songwriter Pete Yorn is 46. Former MLB AllStar Alex Rodriguez is

45. Actor Seamus Dever is 44. Actress Martha Madison is 43. Actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers is 43. Actress/comedian Heidi Gardner is 37. Actor Blair Redford is 37. Actress Taylor Schilling is 36. MLB All-Star pitcher Max Scherzer is 36. Singer Cheyenne Kimball is

30. Golfer Jordan Spieth is 27. Actress Alyvia Alyn Lind is 13.