Today’s highlight in history
On July 23, 1914, Austria-Hungary presented a list of demands to Serbia following the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serb assassin; Serbia’s refusal to agree to the entire ultimatum led to the outbreak of World War I.
On this date
In 1829, William Austin Burt received a patent for his “typographer,” a forerunner of the typewriter.
In 1967, five days of rioting erupted in Detroit as a police raid on an unlicensed bar resulted in a confrontation that escalated into violence that spread to other parts of the city; 43 people were killed.
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 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.
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, crammed with dozens of immigrants; 10 died and many more were treated for dehydration and heat stroke. (The driver was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to transporting the immigrants resulting in death.)
Ten years ago: Michael Jackson’s physician, Conrad Murray, was named in a search warrant as the target of a manslaughter probe into the singer’s death. (He was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.)
Five years ago: The state of Arizona executed Joseph Rudolph Wood, convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her father. (It took nearly two hours for him to die from his lethal injection.)
One year ago: The New York Daily News cut half of its newsroom staff, including the editor in chief.