TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Friday, July 13, the 194th day of 2018.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On July 13, 1960, John F. Kennedy won the Democratic presidential nomination on the first ballot at his party’s convention in Los Angeles, outdrawing rivals including Lyndon B. Johnson, Stuart Symington and Adlai Stevenson.

ON THIS DATE

In 1787, the Congress of the Confederation adopted the Northwest Ordinance, which established a government in the Northwest Territory, an area corresponding to the eastern half of the presentday Midwest.

In 1793, French revolutionary writer Jean-Paul Marat was stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday, who was executed four days later.

In 1863, deadly rioting against the Civil War military draft erupted in New York City. (The insurrection was put down three days later.)

In 1923, a sign consisting of 50-foot-tall letters spelling out“HOLLYWOODLAND” was dedicated in the Hollywood Hills to promote a subdivision (the last four letters were removed in 1949). In 1939, Frank Sinatra made his first commercial recording, “From the Bottom of My Heart” and “Melancholy Mood,” with Harry James and his Orchestra for the Brunswick label. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to be U.S. Solicitor General; Marshall became the first black jurist appointed to the post. (Two years later, Johnson nominated Marshall to the

U.S. Supreme Court.)

In 1972, George McGovern received the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Miami Beach.

In 1977, a blackout hit New York City in the mid-evening as lightning strikes on electrical equipment caused power to fail; widespread looting broke out. (The electricity was restored about 25 hours later.)

In 1978, Lee Iacocca was fired as president of Ford Motor Co. by chairman Henry Ford II.

In 1985,“Live Aid,”an international rock concert in London, Philadelphia, Moscow and Sydney, took place to raise money for Africa’s starving people.

In 1999, Angel Maturino Resendiz (ahn-HEHL’ mahtyoo-REE’-noh reh-SEHN’deez), suspected of being the “Railroad Killer,” surrendered in El Paso, Texas. (Resendiz was executed in 2006.)

TEN YEARS AGO: An assault by militants on a remote U.S. base in Afghanistan close to the Pakistan border killed nine American soldiers and wounded 15. Anheuser-Busch agreed to a takeover by giant Belgian brewer InBev SA. Talk show host Les Crane died in Greenbrae, Calif., at age 74.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never.” — Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (18131855).