TODAY IN HISTORY

On Aug. 1, 1714, Britain’s Queen Anne died at age 49.

In 1907, the U.S. Army Signal Corps established an aeronautical division, the forerunner of the U.S. Air Force.

In 1912, the U.S. Marine Corps’ first pilot, 1st Lt. Alfred A. Cunningham, went on his first solo flight as he took off in a Burgess/Curtis Hydroplane from Marblehead Harbor in Massachusetts.

In 1914, Germany declared war on Russia at the onset of World War I.

In 1936, the Olympics opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler.

In 1944, an uprising broke out in Warsaw, Poland, against Nazi occupation; the revolt lasted two months before collapsing.

In 1957, the United States and Canada announced they had agreed to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

In 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman, 25, went on an armed rampage at the University of Texas in Austin that killed 14 people, most of whom were shot by Whitman while he was perched in the clock tower of the main campus building. (Whitman, who had also slain his wife and mother hours earlier, was finally gunned down by police.)

In 1981, the rock music video channel MTV made its debut.

In 2001, Pro Bowl tackle Korey Stringer, 27, died of heat stroke, a day after collapsing at the Minnesota Vikings’ training camp on the hottest day of the year.

In 2007, the eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, collapsed into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour, killing 13 people.

In 2013, defying the United States, Russia granted Edward Snowden temporary asylum, allowing the NSA leaker to slip out of the Moscow airport.

In 2014, a medical examiner ruled that a New York City police officer’s chokehold caused the death of Eric Garner, whose videotaped arrest and final pleas of “I can’t breathe!” had sparked outrage.