TODAY HISTORY IN

Today is Tuesday, July 23, the 204th day of 2019. There are 161 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 23, 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.

On this date:

In 1829, William Austin Burt received a patent for his “typographer,” a forerunner of the typewriter.

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 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.

Ten years ago: Michael Jackson’s personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, was named in a search warrant as the target of a manslaughter probe into the singer’s death. (Murray was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter.)

Five years ago: Taiwan’s TransAsia Airways Flight 222, an ATR-72, crashed while attempting to land on Penghu Island, killing 48 of the 58 people on board.

One year ago: The White House said President Donald Trump was considering revoking the security clearances of six former top national security officials who had been critical of his administration. The New York Daily News cut half of its newsroom staff, including the paper’s editor in chief.

The Senate, by a vote of 86-9, confirmed Pentagon official Robert Wilkie to be secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Today’s Birthdays: Concert pianist Leon Fleisher is 91. Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is 83. Actor Ronny Cox is 81. Radio personality Don Imus is 79. Actor Larry Manetti is 76. Actress-writer Lydia Cornell is 66. Actor Woody Harrelson is 58. Actor Juan Pope is 52. Model-actress Stephanie Seymour is 51. Actorcomedian Marlon Wayans is 47. Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky is 46. Actress Stephanie March is 45. Actress Krysta Rodriguez is 35. Actor Daniel Radcliffe is 30. Country musician Neil Perry is 29. Actress Lili Simmons is 26.

Thought for Today: “To be proud and inaccessible is to be timid and weak.”—Jean Baptiste Massillon, French clergyman (1663-1742).

—THE ASSOCIATED PRESS