Today’s snapshot of what’s going on locally
Turn to the Community Page today and every day for upcoming area activities and a look at local history.
Today is Monday, July 23, the 204th day of 2018. There are 161 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History: On July 23, 1829, William Austin Burt received a patent for his “typographer,” a forerunner of the typewriter.
On this date:
In 1885, Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, died in Mount McGregor, New York, at age 63.
In 1914, Austria-Hungary presented a list of demands to Serbia following the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serb assassin; Serbia’s refusal to agree to the entire ultimatum led to the outbreak of World War I.
In 1945, French Marshal Henri Petain (ahnREE’ pay-TAN’), who had headed the pro-Axis Vichy (vee-shee) government during World War II, went on trial, charged with treason. (He was convicted and condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison. On this date in 1951, Petain died in prison.)
In 1962, the first public TV transmissions over Telstar 1 took place during a special program featuring live shots beamed from the United States to Europe, and vice versa.
In 1967, five days of deadly rioting erupted in Detroit as an early morning police raid on an unlicensed bar resulted in a confrontation with local residents that escalated into violence that spread into other parts of the city; 43 people, mostly blacks, were killed.
In 1982, actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le and 6-year-old Renee ShinYi Chen, were killed when a helicopter crashed on top of them during filming of a Vietnam War scene for “Twilight Zone: The Movie.” (Director John Landis and four associates were later acquitted of manslaughter.)
In 1984, Vanessa Williams became the first Miss America to resign her title, after nude photographs of her taken in 1982 were published in Penthouse magazine.
In 1986, Britain’s Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey in London. (The couple divorced in 1996.)
In 1996, at the Atlanta Olympics, Kerri Strug made a heroic final vault despite torn ligaments in her left ankle as the U.S. women gymnasts clinched their first-ever Olympic team gold medal.
In 1997, the search for Andrew Cunanan, the suspected killer of designer Gianni Versace (JAH’-nee vur-SAH’-chee) and others, ended as police found his body on a houseboat in Miami Beach, an apparent suicide.
In 1999, space shuttle Columbia blasted off with the world’s most powerful Xray telescope and Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a U.S. space flight.
In 2011, singer Amy Winehouse, 27, was found dead in her London home from accidental alcohol poisoning.
Ten years ago: Hurricane Dolly slammed into the South Texas coast with punishing rain and winds of 100 mph. Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama toured Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, laying a wreath in memory of the 6 million Jews who died. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met North Korea’s top diplomat (Pak Ui Chun) in Singapore, ending a fouryear hiatus in cabinet-level contacts between the two countries.
Five years ago: With a high-stakes showdown vote looming in the House, the White House and congressional backers of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program warned that ending the massive collection of phone records from millions of Americans would put the nation at risk from another terrorist attack. (The next day, the House narrowly voted against halting the NSA program.)