TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SATURDAY, JULY 18, the 200th day of 2020. There are 166 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 2013, Detroit, which was once the very symbol of American industrial might, became the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, its finances ravaged and its neighborhoods hollowed out by a long, slow decline in population and auto manufacturing.
In 1863, during the Civil War, Union troops spearheaded by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, made up of Black soldiers, charged Confederate-held Fort Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina. The Confederates were able to repel the Northerners, who suffered heavy losses; the 54th’s commander, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, was among those who were killed.
In 1872, Britain enacted voting by secret ballot. In 1913, comedian Red Skelton was born in Vincennes, Indiana.
In 1918, South African anti-apartheid leader and president Nelson Mandela was born in the village of Mvezo.
In 1944, Hideki Tojo was removed as Japanese premier and war minister because of setbacks suffered by his country in World War II. American forces in France captured the Normandy town of St. Lo.
In 1964, nearly a week of rioting erupted in New York’s Harlem neighborhood following the fatal police shooting of a Black teenager, James Powell, two days earlier. In 1969, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., left a party on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard with Mary Jo Kopechne , 28; some time later, Kennedy’s car went off a bridge into the water. Kennedy was able to escape, but Kopechne drowned.
In 1984, gunman James Huberty opened fire at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, California, killing 21 people before being shot dead by police. Walter F. Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination in San Francisco.
In 1986, the world got its first look at the wreckage of the RMS Titanic resting on the ocean floor as videotape of the British luxury liner, which sank in 1912, was released by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
In 1994, a bomb hidden in a van destroyed a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85. Tutsi rebels declared an end to Rwanda’s 14-week-old civil war.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Skating champion and commentator Dick Button is 91. Olympic gold medal figure skater Tenley Albright is 85. Movie director Paul Verhoeven is 82. Musician Brian Auger and singer Dion DiMucci are 81. Actor James Brolin and Baseball Hall-of-Famer Joe Torre are 80. Singer Martha Reeves is 79. Pop-rock musician Wally Bryson (The Raspberries) and country-rock singer Craig Fuller (Pure Prairie League) are 71. Business mogul Richard Branson is 70. Actress Margo Martindale is 69. Singer Ricky Skaggs is 66. Actress Audrey Landers is 64. World Golf Hall-of-Famer Nick Faldo and rock musician Nigel Twist (The Alarm) are 63. Actress Anne-Marie Johnson is 60. Actress Elizabeth McGovern is 59. Rock musicians John Hermann (Widespread Panic) and Jack Irons are 58. Talk show host-actress Wendy Williams is 56. Actor Vin Diesel is 53. Actor Grant Bowler is 52. Retired NBA All-Star Penny Hardaway is 49. Bluegrass musician Jesse Brock (The Gibson Brothers), alt-country singer Elizabeth Cook and actor Eddie Matos are 48. Dance music singer-songwriter M.I.A. and rock musician Daron Malakian (System of a Down; Scars on Broadway) are 45. Actress Elsa Pataky (“The Fast and the Furious” films) is 44. Rock musician Tony Fagenson (formerly with Eve 6) is 42. Movie director Jared Hess and actor Jason Weaver are 41. Actress Kristen Bell is 40. Actor Michiel Huisman is 39. Rock singer Ryan Cabrera and actress Priyanka Chopra are 38. Christian-rock musician Aaron Gillespie (Underoath) is 37. Actors Chace Crawford and James Norton are 35. Musician Paul Kowert (Punch Brothers) and actor Travis Milne are 34.