TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, July 28, the 210th day of 2020. There are 156 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 28, 1945, the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nations Charter by a vote of 89-2.
On this date:
■ In 1794, Maximilien Robespierre, a leading figure of the French Revolution, was sent to the guillotine.
■ In 1914, World War I began as AustriaHungary declared war on Serbia.
■ In 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.
■ In 1945, a U.S. Army bomber crashed into the 79th floor of New York’s Empire State Building, killing 14 people.
■ In 1959, in preparation for statehood, Hawaiians voted to send the first ChineseAmerican, Republican Hiram L. Fong, to the U.S. Senate and the first JapaneseAmerican, Democrat Daniel K. Inouye, to the U.S. House of Representatives.
■ In 1984, the Los Angeles Summer Olympics opened.
■ In 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.)
■ In 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.
■ In 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.
Ten years ago: U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton put most of Arizona’s toughest-inthe-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.)
Five years ago: President Barack Obama wrapped up his trip to Kenya and Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, where he urged African leaders to leave office peacefully after their terms expired. In a case that outraged animal lovers, Zimbabwean police said they were searching for an American who had shot and killed a well-known, protected lion known as Cecil during a bow hunt; Walter Palmer, a Minnesota dentist, issued a statement saying he thought everything about his trip was legal. (Officials in Zimbabwe later said Palmer had not broken the country’s hunting laws.)
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-yearold girl, and wounding 17 others before taking his own life. President Donald Trump announced that Dan Coats would be resigning from his post as director of national intelligence, after a turbulent two years in which he and Trump were often at odds over Russian interference in the 2016 election. (Trump named John Ratcliffe to succeed Coats, but the Texas Republican congressman withdrew after five days of growing questions about his experience and qualifications.)
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Darryl Hickman is 89. Ballet dancer-choreographer Jacques d’Amboise is 86. Musical conductor Riccardo Muti is 79. Former Senator and NBA Hall of Famer Bill Bradley is 77. “Garfield” creator Jim Davis is TV producer Dick Ebersol is 73. Actress Sally Struthers is 73. Rock musician Simon Kirke (Bad Company) is 71. Rock musician Steve Morse (Deep Purple) is
66. Former CBS anchorman Scott Pelley is 63. Alt-country-rock musician Marc Perlman is 59. Actor Michael Hayden is 57. Actress Lori Loughlin is 56. Jazz musician-producer Delfeayo Marsalis is
55. Former hockey player Garth Snow is
51. Actress Elizabeth Berkley is 48. Singer Afroman is 46. Actor Jon Michael Hill is 35. Actor Dustin Milligan is 35. Actor Nolan Gerard Funk is 34. Rapper Soulja Boy is
30. Pop/rock singer Cher Lloyd (TV: “The X Factor”) is 27.