Today in history

On July 30, 1916, German saboteurs blew up a munitions plant on Black Tom, an island near Jersey City, New Jersey. Although casualties were limited (about a dozen people were killed), the explosion was so huge, it was felt throughout New York City and damaged the Statue of Liberty.

In 1619, the first representative assembly in America convened in Jamestown in the Virginia Colony.

In 1729, Baltimore, Maryland, was founded.

In 1864, during the Civil War, Union forces tried to take Petersburg, Virginia, by exploding a gunpowder-laden mine shaft beneath Confederate defense lines; the attack failed.

In 1918, poet Joyce Kilmer, a sergeant in the 165th U.S. Infantry Regiment, was killed during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I. (Kilmer is remembered for his poem "Trees.")

In 1932, the Summer Olympic Games opened in Los Angeles.

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill creating a women's auxiliary agency in the Navy known as "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service" — WAVES for short.

In 1945, the Portland class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, having just delivered components of the atomic bomb to Tinian in the Mariana Islands, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine; only 317 out of nearly 1,200 men survived.

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure making "In God We Trust" the national motto, replacing "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of many, one).

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a measure creating Medicare, which began operating the following year.

In 1975, former Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in suburban Detroit; although presumed dead, his remains have never been found.

In 1980, Israel's Knesset passed a law reaffirming all of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.

In 1996, actress Claudette Colbert died in Barbados at age 92.

Ten years ago: Israel agreed to a 48-hour suspension of aerial activity over southern Lebanon after its bombing of a Lebanese village that killed 29 people. Congo held its first multiparty election in four decades (incumbent President Joseph Kabila later won a runoff).

Five years ago: NATO jets bombed three Libyan state TV satellite transmitters in Tripoli, targeting a propaganda tool in Moammar Gadhafi's fight against rebels.

“The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided.” — Casey Stengel, American baseball manager (born this date in 1890, died in 1975).