TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Monday, July 23, the 204th day of 2018. There are 161 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 23, 1829, William Austin Burt received a patent for his “typographer,” a forerunner of the typewriter.
On this date:
In 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.
In 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.)
In 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.
In 1967, five days of deadly rioting erupted in Detroit as an early-morning police raid on an unlicensed bar 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.
In 1982, actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, 7-yearold Myca Dinh Le and 6-yearold 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.)
In 1984, Vanessa Williams became the first Miss America to resign her title, after nude photographs of her taken in 1982 were published in Penthouse magazine.
In 1986, Britain’s Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey in London. (The couple divorced in 1996.)
In 1996, at the Atlanta Olympics, Kerri Strug made a heroic final vault despite torn ligaments in her left ankle as the U.S. women gymnasts clinched their first-ever Olympic team gold medal.
In 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.
In 1999, space shuttle Columbia blasted off with the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope and Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a U.S. space flight.
Ten years ago: Hurricane Dolly slammed into the South Texas coast with punishing rain and winds of 100 mph. Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama toured Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, laying a wreath in memory of the 6 million Jews who died. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met North Korea’s top diplomat (Pak Ui Chun) in Singapore, ending a four-year hiatus in cabinet-level contacts between the two countries.
Five years ago: With a high-stakes showdown vote looming in the House, the White House and congressional backers of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program warned that ending the massive collection of phone records from millions of Americans would put the nation at risk from another terrorist attack. (The next day, the House narrowly voted against halting the NSA program.)
One year ago: A tractor trailer was found in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas, crammed with dozens of immigrants; ten died and many more were treated at a hospital for dehydration and heat stroke. (The driver, James Bradley Jr., was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to transporting the immigrants resulting in death.)
Today’s Birthdays: Concert pianist Leon Fleisher is 90. Retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is 82. Actor Ronny Cox is 80. Radio personality Don Imus is 78. Actor Larry Manetti is 75. Country singer Tony Joe White is 75. Rock singer David Essex is 71. Singer-songwriter John Hall is 70. Actress Belinda Montgomery is 68. Rock musician Blair Thornton (Bachman Turner Overdrive) is 68. Actress Edie McClurg is 67. Actress-writer Lydia Cornell is 65. Actor Woody Harrelson is 57. Rock musician Martin Gore (Depeche Mode) is 57. Actor Eriq Lasalle is 56. Rock musician Yuval Gabay is 55. Rock musician Slash is 53. Actor Juan Pope is 51. Modelactress Stephanie Seymour is 50. Actress Charisma Carpenter is 48. Rhythm-andblues singer Sam Watters is 48. Country singer Alison Krauss is 47. Rhythm-andblues singer Dalvin DeGrate is 47. Rock musician Chad Gracey (Live) is 47. Actorcomedian Marlon Wayans is
46. Country singer Shannon Brown is 45. Actress Kathryn Hahn is 45. Retired MLB AllStar Nomar Garciaparra is
45. Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky is 45. Actress Stephanie March is
44. Country musician David Pichette is 41. Rhythm-andblues singer Michelle Williams is 38. Actor Paul Wesley is 36. Actress Krysta Rodriguez is
34. Actor Daniel Radcliffe is 29. Country musician Neil Perry is 28. Country singer Danielle Bradbery (TV: “The Voice”) is
22.
Thought for Today: “There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference.”—Juan Montalvo, Ecuadorean essayist and political writer (18321889).