HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY
Today’s highlight:
On July 20, 1944, An attempt by a group of German officials to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb failed as the explosion only wounded the Nazi leader. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for a fourth term of office at the Democratic convention in Chicago.
On this date:
1861: The Congress of the Confederate States convened in Richmond, Virginia.
1942: The first detachment of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps — later known as WACs — began basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.
1954: The Geneva Accords divided Vietnam into northern and southern entities.
1968: The first International Special Olympics Summer Games, organized by Eunice
Kennedy Shriver, were held at Soldier Field in Chicago.
1969: Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon after reaching the surface in their Apollo 11 lunar module.
1976: America’s Viking 1 robot spacecraft made a successful, first-ever landing on Mars.
1977: A flash flood hit
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, killing more than 80 people and causing $350 million worth of damage. The U.N. Security Council voted to admit Vietnam to the world body.
1982: Irish Republican Army bombs exploded in two London parks, killing eight British soldiers, along with seven horses belonging to the Queen’s Household Cavalry.
1989: Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest by the military government of Myanmar.
1990: Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, one of the court’s most liberal voices, announced he was stepping down.
2012: Gunman James Holmes opened fire inside a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” killing 12 people and wounding 70 others. Holmes was later convicted of murder and attempted murder, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Five years ago:
People rallied in dozens of U.S. cities, urging authorities to press federal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch leader found not guilty in the shooting death of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin. Five employees of an Italian cruise company were convicted of manslaughter in the Costa Concordia shipwreck that killed 32 people, receiving sentences of less than three years. Longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, 92, died in Washington.
One year ago:
O.J. Simpson was granted parole after more than eight years in prison for a hotel room heist in Las Vegas. He was released on October 1. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is from Alabama, said he would remain in office, a day after President Donald Trump rebuked him for recusing himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign.