Today in history
Today in History
Today is Tuesday, July 18, the 199th day of 2017. There are 166 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 18, 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed a Presidential Succession Act which placed the speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tempore next in the line of succession after the vice president.
On this date:
In A.D. 64, the Great Fire of Rome began, consuming most of the city for about a week. (Some blamed the fire on Emperor Nero, who in turn blamed Christians.)
In 1536, the English Parliament passed an act declaring the authority of the pope void in England.
In 1792, American naval hero John Paul Jones died in Paris at age 45.
In 1817, English novelist Jane Austen died in Winchester at age 41.
In 1927, Ty Cobb hit safely for the 4,000th time in his career during a game between the Philadelphia Athletics (his new team) and the Detroit Tigers (his old one) at Navin Field. (The Tigers won, 5-3.)
In 1932, the United States and Canada signed a treaty to develop the St. Lawrence Seaway.
In 1944, Hideki Tojo was removed as Japanese premier and war minister because of setbacks suffered by his country in World War II. American forces in France captured the Normandy town of St. Lo.
In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden and French Premier Edgar Faure held a summit in Geneva.
In 1969, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., left a party on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard with Mary Jo Kopechne (koh-PEHK’-nee), 28; some time later, Kennedy’s car went off a bridge into the water. Kennedy was able to escape, but Kopechne drowned.
In 1976, 14-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, competing at the Montreal Olympics, received the first-ever perfect score of 10 with her routine on uneven parallel bars. (Comaneci would go on to receive six more 10s in Montreal.)
In 1984, gunman James Huberty opened fire at a McDonald’s fast food restaurant in San Ysidro (eeSEE’-droh), California, killing 21 people before being shot dead by police. Walter F. Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination in San Francisco.
In 1994, a bomb hidden in a van destroyed a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85. Tutsi rebels declared an end to Rwanda’s 14-week-old civil war.
Ten years ago: Senate Republicans torpedoed legislation to force the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq. An underground steam pipe exploded on a New York City street, swallowing a tow truck and claiming the life of a woman who suffered a heart attack. Armed men kidnapped two Germans and five Afghans working on a dam project in central Afghanistan. (One of the Germans, Ruediger Diedrich, was found shot dead three days later; the others were later released.) Opera tenor Jerry Hadley, 55, died at a hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York, a week after shooting himself with an air rifle.
Five years ago: Rebels penetrated the heart of Syria’s power elite, detonating a bomb inside a high-level crisis meeting in Damascus that killed three leaders of the regime, including President Bashar Assad’s brotherin-law and the defense minister. A bus bombing at the Burgas airport in Bulgaria killed five Israeli tourists, the bus driver and the suspected perpetrator.