TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Sunday, July 23, the 204th day of 2017. There are 161 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On July 23, 1967, five days of deadly rioting erupted in Detroit as an early morning police raid on a “blind pig” (an unlicensed bar) at the intersection of 12th Street and Clairmount Avenue resulted in a confrontation with local residents that escalated into violence that spread into other parts of the city; 43 people, mostly blacks, were killed.
On this date
1829 — William Austin Burt received a patent for his “typographer,” a forerunner of the typewriter. 1892 — Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was born. 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. 1945 — French Marshal Henri Petain, who had headed the pro-Axis Vichy government during World War II, went on trial, charged with treason. (He was convicted and condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison. On this date in 1951, Petain died in prison.) 1952 — Egyptian military officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser launched a successful coup against King Farouk I. 1962 — The first public TV transmissions over Telstar 1 took place during a special program featuring live shots beamed from the United States to Europe, and vice versa. 1982 — Actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were killed when a helicopter crashed on top of them during filming of a Vietnam War scene for “Twilight Zone: The Movie.” (Director John Landis and four associates were later acquitted of manslaughter.) 1986 — Britain’s Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey in London. (The couple divorced in 1996.) 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.
Five years ago
Thought for today ‘The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.’ Coco Chanel French fashion designer (1883-1971)
His hair dyed a shocking comic-book shade of orange-red, James Holmes, the former doctoral student accused of killing 12 moviegoers at a showing of the new Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado, appeared in court for the first time. (Holmes was convicted of murder and attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.)
Penn State’s football program was all but leveled by penalties for its handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal as the NCAA imposed an unprecedented $60 million fine, a fouryear ban from postseason play and a cut in the number of football scholarships it could award.