TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 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.

1794

French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre was overthrown and placed under arrest; he was executed the following day.

1866

Cyrus W. Field finished laying out the first successful underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe.

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.

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.”

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.

1996

Terror struck the Atlanta Olympics as a pipe bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park, directly killing one person and injuring 111.

2003

Comedian Bob Hope died in Toluca Lake, Calif. at age 100. Lance Armstrong won a record-tying fifth straight title in the Tour de France.