TODAY IN WORLD HISTORY
Today is Saturday, July 8, the 189th day of 2017. There are 176 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History On July 8, 1947, a New Mexico newspaper, the Roswell Daily Record, quoted officials at Roswell Army Air Field as saying they had recovered a “flying saucer” that crashed onto a ranch; officials then said it was actually a weather balloon. (To this day, there are those who believe what fell to Earth was an alien spaceship carrying extra-terrestrial beings.)
On this date • In 1776, Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, outside the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.
• In 1950, President Harry S. Truman named Gen. Douglas MacArthur commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea. (Truman ended up sacking MacArthur for insubordination nine months later.)
• In 1965, Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 21, a Douglas DC-6B, crashed in British Columbia after the tail separated from the fuselage; all 52 people on board were killed in what authorities said was the result of an apparent bombing.
• In 2011, former first lady Betty Ford died in Rancho Mirage, California, at age 93.
On July 9 • In 1816, Argentina declared independence from Spain.
• In 1850, the 12th president of the United States, Zachary Taylor, died after serving only 16 months of his term. (He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore.)
• In 1945, architect Frank Lloyd Wright unveiled his design for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, a spiral structure on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that was completed in 1959.
• In 1951, President Harry S. Truman asked Congress to formally end the state of war between the United States and Germany. (An official end to the state of war was declared in October 1951.)
• In 1962, pop artist Andy Warhol’s exhibit of 32 paintings of Campbell’s soup cans opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.
• In 1974, former U.S. Chief Justice Earl Warren died in Washington at age 83.
• In 1982, Pan Am Flight 759, a Boeing 727, crashed in Kenner, Louisiana, shortly after takeoff from New Orleans International Airport, killing all 145 people aboard and eight people on the ground.
• In 1995, Jerry Garcia performed for the final time as frontman of the Grateful Dead during a concert at Chicago’s Soldier Field (Garcia died a month later).
On July 10 • In 1509, theologian John Calvin, a key figure of the Protestant Reformation, was born in Noyon, Picardy, France.
• In 1890, Wyoming became the 44th state.
• In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson personally delivered the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate and urged its ratification. (However, the Senate rejected it.)
• In 1925, jury selection took place in Dayton, Tennessee, in the trial of John T. Scopes, charged with violating the law by teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. (Scopes was convicted and fined, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality.)
In 1951, armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean War began at Kaesong.
• In 1973, the Bahamas became fully independent after three centuries of British colonial rule. John Paul Getty III, the teenage grandson of the oil tycoon, was abducted in Rome by kidnappers who cut off his ear when his family was slow to meet their ransom demands; Getty was released in December 1973 for nearly $3 million.
• In 1991, Boris N. Yeltsin took the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian republic. President George H.W. Bush lifted economic sanctions against South Africa.
• In 1999, the United States women’s soccer team won the World Cup, beating China 5-4 on penalty kicks after 120 minutes of scoreless play at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.