Today in history

Today is Tuesday, July 28, the 210th day of 2020. There are 156 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 28, 1945, the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nations Charter by a vote of 89-2.

On this date:

In 1794, Maximilien Robespierre, a leading figure of the French Revolution, was sent to the guillotine.

In 1914, World War I began as Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

In 1929, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was born in Southampton, N.Y.

In 1932, federal troops forcibly dispersed the so-called “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans who had gathered in Washington to demand payments they weren’t scheduled to receive until 1945.

In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the end of coffee rationing, which had limited people to one pound of coffee every five weeks since it began in Nov. 1942.

In 1945, a U.S. Army bomber crashed into the 79th floor of New York’s Empire State Building, killing 14 people.

In 1959, in preparation for statehood, Hawaiians voted to send the first ChineseAmerican, Republican Hiram L. Fong, to the U.S. Senate and the first JapaneseAmerican, Democrat Daniel K. Inouye, to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1976, an earthquake devastated northern China, killing at least 242,000 people, according to an official estimate.

In 1984, the Los Angeles Summer Olympics opened.

In 1989, Israeli commandos abducted a pro-Iranian Shiite (SHEE’-eyet) Muslim cleric, Sheik Abdul-Karim Obeid (AHB’-dool kahREEM’ oh-BAYD’), from his home in south Lebanon. (He was released in January 2004 as part of a prisoner swap.)

In 2016, Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Philadelphia, where she cast herself as a unifier for divided times as well as an experienced leader steeled for a volatile world while aggressively challenging Republican Donald Trump’s ability to lead.