TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, July 26, the 207th day of 2019. There are 158 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 26, 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
On this date:
■ In 1775, the Continental Congress established a Post Office and appointed Benjamin Franklin its Postmaster-General.
■ In 1863, Sam Houston, former president of the Republic of Texas, died in Huntsville at age 70.
■ In 1908, U.S. Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte ordered creation of a force of special agents that was a forerunner of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
■ In 1925, five days after the end of the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, prosecutor William Jennings Bryan died at age 65. (Although Bryan had won a conviction against John T. Scopes for teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, the verdict was later overturned.)
■ In 1953, Fidel Castro began his revolt against Fulgencio Batista (fool-HEN’see-oh bah-TEES’-tah) with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks in eastern Cuba. (Castro ousted Batista in 1959.)
■ In 1956, the Italian liner Andrea Doria sank off New England, some 11 hours after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm; at least 51 people died.
■ In 1986, Islamic radicals in Lebanon released the Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, an American hostage held for nearly 19 months. American statesman W. Averell Harriman died in Yorktown Heights, New York, at age 94.
■ In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act.
■ In 2002, the Republican-led House voted, 295-132, to create an enormous Homeland Security Department in the biggest government reorganization in decades.
■ In 2006, in a dramatic turnaround from her first murder trial, Andrea Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity by a Houston jury in the bathtub drownings of her five children; she was committed to a state mental hospital. (Yates had initially been found guilty of murder, but had her conviction overturned.)
■ In 2013, Ariel Castro, the man who’d imprisoned three women in his Cleveland home, subjecting them to a decade of rapes and beatings, pleaded guilty to 937 counts in a deal to avoid the death penalty. (Castro later committed suicide in prison.)
■ In 2017, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he would not “accept or allow” transgender people to serve in the U.S. military. (After a legal battle, the Defense Department approved a new policy requiring most individuals to serve in their birth gender.) A thrill ride broke apart at the Ohio State Fair, killing an 18-year-old high school student and injuring seven others.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Robert Colbert is 88. Actresssinger Darlene Love is 78. Singer Brenton Wood is 78. Rock star Mick Jagger is 76. Movie director Peter Hyams is 76. Actress Helen Mirren is 74. Rock musician Roger Taylor (Queen) is 70. Actress Susan George is 69. Olympic gold medal figure skater Dorothy Hamill is 63. Actress Nana Visitor is 62. Actor Kevin Spacey is 60. Rock singer Gary Cherone is 58. Actress Sandra Bullock is 55. Actorcomedian Danny Woodburn is 55. Rock singer Jim Lindberg (Pennywise) is 54. Actor Jeremy Piven is 54. Rapperreggae singer Wayne Wonder is 53. Actor Jason Statham (STAY’-thum) is 52. Actor Cress Williams is 49. TV host Chris Harrison is 48. Actress Kate Beckinsale is 46. Actor Gary Owen is 46. Rock musician Dan Konopka (OK Go) is 45. Gospel/Contemporary Christian singer Rebecca St. James is 42. Actress Eve Myles is 41. Actress Juliet Rylance is 40. Actress Monica Raymund is 33. Actress Caitlin Gerard is 31. Actress Francia Raisa is 31. Christian rock musician Jamie Sharpe (Rush of Fools) is 30. Actress Bianca Santos is 29. Actress-singer Taylor Momsen is 26. Actress Elizabeth Gillies is 26.
Thought for Today: “Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”—Aldous Huxley, English author (born this date in 1894, died in 1963).