Today in history

Today is Sunday, July 1, the 182nd day of 2018. There are 183 days left in the year. This is Canada Day.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 1, 1867, Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain as the British North America Act took effect.

On this date:

In 1535, Sir Thomas More went on trial in England, charged with high treason for rejecting the Oath of Supremacy. (More was convicted, and executed.)

In 1916, during World War I, France and Britain launched the Somme Offensive against the German army; the 4 ½-month battle resulted in heavy casualties and produced no clear winner. Dwight D. Eisenhower married Mary (“Mamie”) Geneva Doud in Denver.

In 1934, Hollywood began enforcing its Production Code subjecting motion pictures to censorship review.

In 1946, the United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

In 1957, the International Geophysical Year, an 18-month global scientific study, began.

In 1961, Diana, the princess of Wales, was born in Sandringham, England. (She died in a 1997 car crash in Paris at age 36.)

In 1973, the Drug Enforcement Administration was established.

In 1980, “O Canada” was proclaimed the national anthem of Canada.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated federal appeals court judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court, setting off a tempestuous confirmation process that ended with Bork’s rejection by the Senate.

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated federal appeals court judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, beginning an ultimately successful confirmation process marked by allegations of sexual harassment. The Warsaw Pact formally disbanded.

In 1997, Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony. Actor Robert Mitchum died in Santa Barbara, California, at age 79.

In 2002, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal, the International Criminal Court, came into existence. A Russian passenger jet collided with a cargo plane over southern Germany, killing all 69 people, including 45 schoolchildren, on the Russian plane and the cargo jet pilots.

Ten years ago: Five years ago: Ex-convict Nicholas T. Sheley, suspected in eight grisly slayings in two states, was arrested outside a bar in Granite City, Ill. (Sheley has since been convicted of two murders.) The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver agreed to pay $5.5 million to settle 18 more claims by people who said they’d been sexually abused by priests when they were children. Clay Felker, founding editor of New York magazine, died at age 82.

Five years ago: President Barack Obama, during a visit to Tanzania, brushed aside sharp European criticism, suggesting that all nations spy on each other as the French and Germans expressed outrage over allegations of U.S. eavesdropping on European Union diplomats. Obama joined his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, at a wreath-laying ceremony honoring victims of the 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. Serena Williams joined a growing list of marquee names eliminated early at a wild and unpredictable Wimbledon,