Today in history

On August 1, 1957, the United States and Canada announced they had agreed to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

In 1907, the U.S. Army Signal Corps established an aeronautical division, the forerunner of the U.S. Air Force.

In 1936, the Olympics opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler.

In 1944, an uprising broke out in Warsaw, Poland, against Nazi occupation; the revolt lasted two months before collapsing.

In 1947, Mickey Spillane’s first novel, “I, the Jury,” featuring the debut of private eye Mike Hammer, was published.

In 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman, 25, went on an armed rampage at the University of Texas in Austin that killed 14 people, most of whom were shot by Whitman while he was perched in the clock tower of the main campus building. (Whitman, who had also slain his wife and mother hours earlier, was finally gunned down by police.)

In 1981, the rock music video channel MTV made its debut.

In 1994, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley confirmed they’d been secretly married 11 weeks earlier. (Presley filed for divorce from Jackson in Jan. 1996, citing irreconcilable differences.)

Ten years ago: The eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, collapsed into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour, killing 13 people.

Five years ago: President Barack Obama made his rival’s personal millions a front-and-center issue in the race for the White House, telling a swing-state audience in Ohio that Mitt Romney “is asking you to pay more so that people like him can get a big tax cut.” Four teams from China, South Korea and Indonesia were kicked out of the women’s badminton doubles at the London Olympics for trying to lose on purpose in order to earn an easier matchup in the knockout round.

One year ago: President Barack Obama, speaking at the annual convention of the Disabled American Veterans in Atlanta, said the U.S. had made serious strides in improving services for military veterans, but that work remained to overcome shortcomings in the delivery of health care, housing and mental health services.

“Pride, like humility, is destroyed by one’s insistence that he possesses it.” — Kenneth Bancroft Clark, American educator and psychologist (1914-2005).