TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, July 23, the 204th day of 2019. There are 161 days left in the year.
TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT
On July 23, 1999, space shuttle Columbia blasted off with the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope and Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a U.S. space flight.
ON THIS DATE
In 1829, William Austin Burt received a patent for his “typographer,”a forerunner of the typewriter.
In 1885, Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, died in Mount McGregor, New York, at age 63.
In 1962, the first public TV transmissions over Telstar 1 took place during a special program featuring live shots beamed from the United States to Europe, and vice versa.
In 1967, five days of deadly rioting erupted in Detroit as an early morning police raid on an unlicensed bar resulted in a confrontation with local residents that escalated into violence that spread into other parts of the city; 43 people, mostly blacks, were killed.
In 1983, an Air Canada Boeing 767 ran out of fuel while flying from Montreal to Edmonton; the pilots were able to glide the jetliner to a safe emergency landing in Gimli, Manitoba. (The near-disaster occurred because the fuel had been erroneously measured in pounds instead of kilograms at a time when Canada was converting to the metric system.)
In 1996, at the Atlanta Olympics, Kerri Strug made a heroic final vault despite torn ligaments in her left ankle as the U.S. women gymnasts clinched their first-ever Olympic team gold medal.
In 1997, the search for Andrew Cunanan, the suspected killer of designer Gianni Versace and others, ended as police found his body on a houseboat in Miami Beach, an apparent suicide.
In 2011, singer Amy Winehouse, 27, was found dead in her London home from accidental alcohol poisoning.
In 2017, a tractor trailer was found in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas, crammed with dozens of immigrants; ten died and many more were treated at a hospital for dehydration and heat stroke. (The driver, James Bradley Jr., was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to transporting the immigrants resulting in death.) President Donald Trump tweeted that he has “complete power” to issue pardons. Jordan Spieth (speeth) won the British Open for his third career major championship.
Ten years ago: Michael Jackson’s personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, was named in a search warrant as the target of a manslaughter probe into the singer’s death. (Murray was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter.)
Five years ago: Taiwan’s TransAsia Airways Flight 222, an ATR-72, crashed while attempting to land on Penghu Island, killing 48 of the 58 people on board.
One year ago: The White House said President Donald Trump was considering revoking the security clearances of six former top national security officials who had been critical of his administration.