Today’s highlight in history
On July 13, 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.)
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 present-day 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 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 1985, “Live Aid,” an international rock concert in London, Philadelphia, Moscow and Sydney, took place to raise money for Africa’s starving people.
In 2013, a jury in Sanford, Fla., acquitted neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman of all charges in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager. News of the verdict prompted Alicia Garza, an African-American activist in Oakland, Calif., to declare on Facebook that “black lives matter,” a phrase that gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Ten years ago: Former media mogul Conrad Black was convicted in Chicago of swindling the Hollinger International newspaper empire out of millions of dollars. (Black was sentenced to 61⁄2 years in federal prison but had his sentence reduced to three years; he was freed in May 2012.)
Five years ago: JPMorgan Chase said its traders may have tried to conceal the losses from a soured investment bet that embarrassed the bank and cost it almost $6 billion.
One year ago: Theresa May entered No. 10 Downing Street as Britain’s new prime minister following a bittersweet exit by David Cameron, who resigned after voters rejected his appeal to stay in the European Union.