Today in history
Today is Tuesday, Aug. 1, the 213th day of 2017. There are 152 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On August 1, 1957, the United States and Canada announced they had agreed to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).
On this date:
In 1714, Britain’s Queen Anne died at age 49; she was succeeded by George I.
In 1876, Colorado was admitted as the 38th state.
In 1907, the U.S. Army Signal Corps established an aeronautical division, the forerunner of the U.S. Air Force.
In 1913, the Joyce Kilmer poem “Trees” was first published in “Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.”
In 1936, the Olympics opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler.
In 1944, an uprising broke out in Warsaw, Poland, against Nazi occupation; the revolt lasted two months before collapsing.
In 1947, Mickey Spillane’s first novel, “I, the Jury,” featuring the debut of private eye Mike Hammer, was published.
In 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman, 25, went on an armed rampage at the University of Texas in Austin that killed 14 people, most of whom were shot by Whitman while he was perched in the clock tower of the main campus building. (Whitman, who had also slain his wife and mother hours earlier, was finally gunned down by police.)
In 1975, a 35-nation summit in Finland concluded with the signing of a declaration known as the Helsinki Accords dealing with European security, human rights and East-West contacts.
In 1977, former U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, working as a traffic reporter for KNBCTV in Los Angeles, was killed with his cameraman, George Spears, when their helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed; Powers was 47.
In 1981, the rock music video channel MTV made its debut.
In 1994, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley confirmed they’d been secretly married 11 weeks earlier. (Presley filed for divorce from Jackson in Jan. 1996, citing irreconcilable differences.)
Ten years ago: The eightlane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, collapsed into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour, killing 13 people.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama made his rival’s personal millions a frontand-center issue in the race for the White House, telling a swing-state audience in Ohio that Mitt Romney “is asking you to pay more so that people like him can get a big tax cut.” Four teams from China, South Korea and Indonesia were kicked out of the women’s badminton doubles at the London Olympics for trying to lose on purpose in order to earn an easier matchup in the knockout round. Host country Britain picked up its first two gold medals as Helen Glover and Heather Stanning won the final of the women’s pair at the rowing regatta and cyclist Bradley Wiggins took the time trial.
One year ago: The United States launched multiple airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Libya, opening a new front against the group at the request of the United Nations-backed Libyan government. President Barack Obama, speaking at the annual convention of the Disabled American Veterans in Atlanta, said the U.S. had made serious strides in improving services for military veterans, but that work remained to overcome shortcomings in the delivery of health care, housing and mental health services. Vice President Joe Biden officiated a gay wedding, a first for the early proponent of same-sex marriage as he presided over the union of Joe Mahshie and Brian Mosteller, both longtime White House aides, at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington.