Also on this date
On July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA.
In 1890,
artist Vincent van Gogh, 37, died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auverssur-Oise, France.
In 1914,
transcontinental telephone service in the U.S. became operational with the first test conversation between New York and San Francisco.
In 1965,
the Beatles’ second feature film, “Help!,” had its world premiere in London.
In 1967,
an accidental rocket launch on the deck of the supercarrier USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin resulted in a fire and explosions that killed 134 servicemen. (Among the survivors was future Arizona senator John McCain, a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who narrowly escaped with his life.)
In 1974,
singer Cass Elliot died in a London hotel room at age 32.
In 1975,
President Gerald R. Ford became the first U.S. president to visit the site of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland.
In 1981,
Britain’s Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in a glittering ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. (The couple divorced in 1996.)
In 1986,
a federal jury in New York found that the National Football League had committed an antitrust violation against the rival United States Football League. But in a hollow victory for the USFL, the jury ordered the NFL to pay token damages of only $3.
In 1999,
a former day trader, apparently upset over stock losses, opened fire in two Atlanta brokerage offices, killing nine people and wounding 13 before shooting himself to death; authorities said Mark O. Barton had also killed his wife and two children.
Ten years ago:
Norway began burying the dead, a week after an antiMuslim extremist killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting rampage.
Five years ago:
Former suburban Chicago police officer Drew Peterson was given an additional 40 years in prison for trying to hire someone to kill the prosecutor who put him behind bars for killing his third wife.
One year ago:
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said energy consumption in the United States plummeted to its lowest level in 30 years in the spring as the economy largely shut down.