TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1925

The so-called “Monkey Trial” ended in Dayton, Tennessee, with John T. Scopes found guilty of violating state law for teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. (The conviction was later overturned on a technicality.)

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1861

During the Civil War, the first Battle of Bull Run was fought at Manassas, Virginia, resulting in a Confederate victory.

1944

American forces landed on Guam during World War II, capturing it from the Japanese some three weeks later.

1954

The Geneva Conference concluded with accords dividing Vietnam into northern and southern entities.

1969

Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin blasted off from the moon aboard the ascent stage of the lunar module for docking with the command module.

1998

Astronaut Alan Shepard died in Monterey, California, at age 74; actor Robert Young died in Westlake Village, California, at age 91.

1999

Navy divers found and recovered the bodies of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, in the wreckage of Kennedy’s plane in the Atlantic Ocean off Martha’s Vineyard.

2016

Donald Trump accepted the GOP presidential nomination with a speech in which he pledged to cheering Republicans and still-skeptical voters that as president, he would restore the safety they feared they were losing, strictly curb immigration and save the nation from what he said was Hillary Clinton’s record of “death, destruction, terrorism and weakness.” The NBA moved the 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte because of its objections to a North Carolina law that limited anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay and transgender people.