Today in history

Today is Wednesday, July 28, the 209th day of 2021. There are 156 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 28, 1976, an earthquake devastated northern China, killing at least 242,000 people, according to an official estimate.

On this date:

In 1540, King Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, was executed, the same day Henry married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard.

In 1821, Peru declared its independence from Spain.

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

In 1932, federal troops forcibly dispersed the socalled “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, the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nations Charter by a vote of 89-2. A U.S. Army bomber crashed into the 79th floor of New York’s Empire State Building, killing 14 people.

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 1995, a jury in Union, South Carolina, rejected the death penalty for Susan Smith, sentencing her to life in prison for drowning her two young sons (Smith will be eligible for parole in 2024).

In 2015, it was announced that Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. Naval intelligence analyst who had spent nearly three decades in prison for spying for Israel, had been granted parole. Tom Brady’s fourgame suspension for his role in using underinflated footballs during the AFC championship game was upheld by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.