TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1996

Terror struck the Atlanta Olympics as a pipe bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park, directly killing one person and injuring 111. (Antigovernment extremist Eric Rudolph later pleaded guilty to the bombing, exonerating security guard Richard Jewell, who had been wrongly suspected.)

ALSO ON THIS DATE

1866

Cyrus W. Field finished laying out the first successful underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe (a previous cable in 1858 burned out after only a few weeks’ use).

1909

During the first official test of the U.S. Army’s first airplane, Orville Wright flew himself and a passenger, Lt. Frank Lahm, above Fort Myer, Virginia, for one hour and 12 minutes.

1919

Race-related rioting erupted in Chicago; the violence, which claimed the lives of 23 Blacks and 15 whites, lasted until Aug. 3.

1921

Canadian researcher Frederick Banting and his assistant, Charles Best, succeeded in isolating the hormone insulin at the University of Toronto.

1953

The Korean War armistice was signed at Panmunjom, ending three years of fighting.

1960

Vice President Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

1967

President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission to assess the causes of urban rioting, the same day Black militant H. Rap Brown told a press conference in Washington that violence was “as American as cherry pie.”

1974

The House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to adopt the first of three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon, charging he had personally engaged in a course of conduct designed to obstruct justice in the Watergate case.

1980

On day 267 of the Iranian hostage crisis, the deposed Shah of Iran died at a military hospital outside Cairo, Egypt, at age 60.

1981

6-year-old Adam Walsh was abducted from a department store in Hollywood, Fla., and was later murdered. (His father, John Walsh, became a well-known crime victims’ advocate.)

1995

The Korean War Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington by President Bill Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young-sam.

2015

The Boy Scouts of America ended its blanket ban on gay adult leaders while allowing church-sponsored Scout units to maintain the exclusion for religious reasons.

2011

Ervin Santana pitched the first solo no-hitter for the Angels in nearly 27 years.