Today in History
Today’s highlight:
On July 28, 1945, the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nations Charter by a vote of 89-2.
On this date:
1794: Maximilien Robespierre, a leading figure of the French Revolution, was sent to the guillotine.
1914: World War I began as Austria-hungary declared war on Serbia.
1929: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was born in
Southampton, N.Y.
1932: Federal troops forcibly dispersed the so-called “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans who had gathered in Washington to demand payments they weren’t scheduled to receive until 1945.
1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the end of coffee rationing, which had limited people to one pound of coffee every five weeks since it began in Nov. 1942.
1945: A U.S. Army bomber crashed into the 79th floor of New York’s Empire State Building, killing 14 people.
1959: In preparation for statehood, Hawaiians voted to send the first Chinese-american, Republican Hiram L. Fong, to the U.S. Senate and the first Japanese-american, Democrat Daniel K. Inouye, to the U.S. House of Representatives.
1976: An earthquake devastated northern China, killing at least 242,000 people, according to an official estimate.
1984: The Los Angeles Summer Olympics opened.
1989: Israeli commandos abducted a pro-iranian Shiite Muslim cleric, Sheik Abdul-karim Obeid, from his home in south Lebanon. He was released in January 2004 as part of a prisoner swap.
2016: Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Philadelphia, where she cast herself as a unifier for divided times as well as an experienced leader steeled for a volatile world while aggressively challenging Republican Donald
Trump’s ability to lead.
2017: The Senate voted 51-49 to reject Majority Leader
Mitch Mcconnell’s last-ditch effort to dismantle President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul with a trimmed-down bill. John Mccain, who was about to begin treatments for a brain tumor, joined two other GOP senators in voting against the repeal effort.
Ten years ago: U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton put most of Arizona’s toughest-in-the-nation immigration law on hold just hours before it was to take effect. In September 2012, Bolton ruled that police could enforce the so-called “show me your papers” provision of the law. Airblue Flight 202, a Pakistani Airbus A321, crashed into the hills overlooking Islamabad, killing all 152 people aboard.
Five years ago: It was announced that Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. Naval intelligence analyst who had spent nearly three decades in prison for spying for Israel, had been granted parole.
One year ago: A gunman opened fire at a popular garlic festival in Gilroy, California, killing three people, including a six-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl, and wounding 17 others before taking his own life.