Today in history

On July 13, 1787, Congress enacted an ordinance governing the Northwest Territory.

In 1793, French revolutionary writer Jean-Paul Marat was stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday, who was executed four days later.

In 1863 violent protests against the Civil War military draft erupted in New York. (In three days of rioting, about 1,000 people died.)

In 1878 the Russo-Turkish War ended with the Treaty of Berlin.

In 1886 the Rev. Edward Flanagan, founder of Girls and Boys Town, was born near Ballymoe, County Roscommon, Ireland.

In 1913 newscaster and television host Dave Garroway was born in Schenectady, N.Y.

In 1934 Nobel Prize-winning playwright, poet and novelist Wole Soyinka was born Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka in Abeokuta, Nigeria.

In 1942 actor Harrison Ford was born in Chicago.

In 1960 John Kennedy won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Los Angeles.

In 1967 race riots broke out in Newark, N.J.; 27 people died during five days of rioting.

In 1974 the Senate Watergate Committee proposed sweeping reforms in an effort to prevent a similar scandal.

In 1977 a power blackout virtually paralyzed New York City for 25 hours. (More than 3,700 people were arrested for looting and rioting during and after the blackout.)

In 1978 Lee Iacocca was fired as president of Ford Motor Co. by Chairman Henry Ford II.

In 1979 four Palestinian guerrillas killed two Turkish security guards and seized 19 hostages at the Egyptian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, demanding freedom for jailed comrades in Egypt. (The guerrillas surrendered and released their hostages two days later.)

In 1985 Live Aid, an international rock concert in London and Philadelphia, was staged to raise money for African famine relief. Also in

1985, before undergoing surgery for colon cancer, President Ronald Reagan transferred power temporarily to Vice President George H.W. Bush; it was the first time the Constitution’s presidential disability clause was invoked.

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