This Week In History
July 8, 1881
The ice cream sundae was invented as an alternative to ice cream soda drinks, banned on the Sabbath as soda was considered a controlled substance, like alcohol 2006: The first manned flight of a powered ornithopter – an aircraft that flaps its wings – took place 2008: A U.S.-Czech plan to base a U.S. missile defence system in the Czech Republic angered Moscow
2010: The Swiss Solar Impulse aircraft remained aloft for 24 hours, a record for a solar powered craft 2013: Egypt’s political crisis escalated when troops shot dead 50 supporters of the ousted President Morsi
July 9, 2017
The Iraqi government declared victory in the Battle of Mosul after Iraqi and Kurdish troops regained control of the city seized by Islamic State in June 2014
1872: New England sea captain John F. Blondel patented the first doughnut cutter that cut the centre out of the ring 1938: Over 35 million gas masks were issued to British civilians in anticipation of World War II 1993: DNA genetic fingerprinting was used to identify the bones of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, murdered in 1918 2003: The Canadian government agreed to allow the use of marijuana for legal medicinal purposes
July 10, 2008
A statue of a wolf suckling twins Romulus and Remus, said to have founded Rome, was revealed to date from the 13th century, instead of 500BC as previously believed
1913: The highest ever recorded shade temperature, 56.7C (134F), was measured in Death Valley, California 1973: The teenage grandson of oil tycoon Paul Getty was kidnapped 2003: The Hubble Space Telescope detected a planet twice the size of Jupiter in the Scorpius constellation 2008: Apple launched its iPhone App Store, offering 500 apps. By 2017 it featured 2.2 million apps and had generated over $70bn in revenue
July 11, 1893
A Japanese entrepreneur produced the first cultured pearl. By 1935 there were 350 pearl farms in Japan, producing 10 million pearls each year 1993: Alain Prost became the first driver to win 50 Formula One races with his victory at the British Grand Prix 2008: The first global study of coral reefs found a third of the world’s coral-building species faced extinction
2010: As predicted by Paul the octopus, Spain won the FIFA World Cup Final, defeating the Netherlands 2015: Mexican drug lord “El Chapo” Guzman escaped from jail a second time, via a tunnel under his shower
July 12, 2017
Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was found guilty of corruption and
money-laundering and sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison
1970: Thor Heyerdahl completed a successful crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the papyrus reed boat Ra II 1970: The Australian Aboriginal Flag was flown for the first time
2001: U.S. scientists announced the creation of human stem cells from cloned embryos which could repair damaged body tissues in future 2005: Prince Albert II became the new ruler of Monaco after the death of his father, Prince Rainier III
July 13, 2017
Liu Xiaobo, pro-democracy activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for his efforts to promote human rights in China, died from liver cancer at age 61 1943: The greatest tank battle in history, with 6,000 tanks, ended with Russia’s defeat of Germany at Kursk
1998: Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto resigned over Japan’s deepening economic crisis
2013: In Florida George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering an unarmed black teenager 2015: Scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced the observation of pentaquarks
July 14, 2014
The Costa Concordia was refloated before being towed away for scrap. The ship capsized off the Italian island of Giglio, with the loss of 32 lives, in January 2012 2008: Belgium’s inBev bought America’s Anheuser-Busch, creating the world’s largest brewing company 2008: The stock value of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest U.S. issuers of mortgage loans, plunged to 17-year lows 2015: The New Horizons space probe performed the first flyby of Pluto 2016: A truck ploughed into a crowd of revellers celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France, killing 84 people