HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY
Today’s highlight:
On Aug. 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson broad powers in dealing with reported North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces.
On this date:
1782: Gen. George Washington created the Order of the Purple Heart, a decoration to recognize merit in enlisted men and noncommissioned officers.
1882: The famous feud between the Hatfields of West Virginia and the McCoys of Kentucky erupted into full-scale violence.
1942: U.S. and other allied forces landed at Guadalcanal, marking the start of the first major allied offensive in the Pacific during World War II. Japanese forces abandoned the island the following February.
1959: The United States launched the Explorer 6 satellite, which sent back images of Earth.
1989: A plane carrying U.S. Rep. Mickey Leland, D-Texas, and 14 others disappeared over Ethiopia. The wreckage of the plane was found six days later; there were no survivors.
1990: President George H.W. Bush ordered U.S. troops and warplanes to Saudi Arabia to guard the oil-rich desert kingdom against a possible invasion by Iraq.
1998: Terrorist bombs at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
2000: Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore selected Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman as his running mate; Lieberman became the first Jew on a major party’s presidential ticket.
2007: San Francisco’s Barry Bonds hit home run No. 756 to break Hank Aaron’s storied record with one out in the fifth inning of a game against the Washington Nationals, who won, 8-6.
2010: Elena Kagan was sworn in as the 112th justice and fourth woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ten years ago:
President George W. Bush, speaking in Bangkok, Thailand, praised the spread of freedom in Asia while sharply criticizing oppression and human rights abuses in China, Myanmar and North Korea; the president then traveled to Beijing to attend the opening of the Olympic games.
Five years ago:
President Barack Obama’s five-year effort to reboot U.S. Russian relations crashed as the White House abruptly canceled his planned face-to-face summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
One year ago:
Chicago filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s policy of withholding public safety grants from sanctuary cities, which chose to limit cooperation with government enforcement of immigration laws. A federal appeals court later ruled that the federal government cannot set new conditions to awarding those grants.