TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Wednesday, July 29, the 211th day of 2020. There are 155 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 29, 1967, an accidental rocket launch on the deck of the supercarrier USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin resulted in a fire and explosions that killed 134 servicemen. (Among the survivors was future Arizona senator John McCain, a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who narrowly escaped with his life.)

On this date:

■ In 1914, transcontinental telephone service in the U.S. became operational with the first test conversation between New York and San Francisco. Massachusetts’ Cape Cod Canal, offering a shortcut across the base of the peninsula, was officially opened to shipping traffic.

■ In 1957, the International Atomic Energy Agency was established. Jack Paar made his debut as host of NBC’s “Tonight Show.”

■ In 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the

National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA.

■ In 1965, The Beatles’ second feature film, “Help!,” had its world premiere in London.

■ In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford became the first U.S. president to visit the site of the Nazi concentration camp

Auschwitz in Poland.

■ In 1981, Britain’s Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in a glittering ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. (The couple divorced in 1996.)

■ In 1986, in New York a federal jury found that the

National Football League had committed an antitrust violation against the rival United States Football League. But in a hollow victory for the U-SF-L, the jury ordered the N-F-L to pay token damages of only three dollars.