Today in history
On July 10, 1940, during World War II, the Battle of Britain began as the Luftwaffe started attacking southern England. (The Royal Air Force was ultimately victorious.)
In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson personally delivered the Treaty of Versailles (vehr-SY’) to the Senate and urged its ratification. (However, the Senate rejected it.)
In 1925, jury selection took place in Dayton, Tennessee, in the trial of John T. Scopes, charged with violating the law by teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. (Scopes was convicted and fined, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality.)
In 1951, armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean War began at Kaesong.
In 1973, John Paul Getty III, the teenage grandson of the oil tycoon, was abducted in Rome by kidnappers who cut off his ear when his family was slow to meet their ransom demands; Getty was released in December
1973 for nearly $3 million. In 1991, Boris N. Yeltsin took the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian republic. President George H.W. Bush lifted economic sanctions against South Africa.
In 1992, a New York jury found Pan Am guilty of willful misconduct and responsible for allowing a terrorist bomb to destroy Flight 103 in 1988, killing
270 people, opening the way for civil lawsuits.
In 1999, the United States women’s soccer team won the World Cup, beating China 5-4 on penalty kicks after 120 minutes of scoreless play at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
In 2002, The House approved, 310-113, a measure to allow airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit to defend their planes against terrorists (President George W. Bush later signed the measure into law).
In 2004, President George W. Bush said in his weekly radio address that legalizing gay marriage would redefine the most fundamental institution of civilization, and that a constitutional amendment was needed to protect traditional marriage.
In 2005, a search-and-rescue team found the body of a missing U.S. commando in eastern Afghanistan, bringing an end to the desperate search for the last member of an ill-fated, four-man special forces unit that had disappeared the previous month.
In 2018, a daring rescue mission in Thailand was completed successfully, as the last four of the 12 boys who were trapped in a flooded cave for more than two weeks were brought to safety along with their soccer coach; the other eight had been brought out in the two preceding days.
Ten years ago: Robotic submarines removed a leaking cap from a gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, sending crude flowing freely into the sea until BP installed a new seal that stopped the oil days later.
Five years ago: Katherine Archuleta, the embattled head of the government’s Office of Personnel Management, abruptly stepped down, bowing to mounting pressure following the unprecedented breach of private information her agency was entrusted to protect. To the cheers of thousands, South Carolina pulled the Confederate flag from its place of honor at the Statehouse after more than 50 years.
One year ago: Fans packed New York City’s Canyon of Heroes for a parade honoring the U.S. women’s national soccer team, winner of the women’s World Cup. Former New York Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton, who exposed the off-field carousing of former teammates including Mickey Mantle in his tell-all book “Ball Four,” died at his Massachusetts home at the age of 80. The independent Atlantic League became the first American professional baseball league to let a computer call balls and strikes at its All-Star Game in York, Pa.