TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS MONDAY, JULY 24, the 205th day of 2023. There are 160 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On July 24, 1915, the SS Eastland, a passenger ship carrying more than 2,500 people, rolled onto its side while docked at the Clark Street Bridge on the Chicago River. An estimated 844 people died in the disaster.
ON THIS DATE:
In 1847, Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah. In 1866, Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War. In 1937, the state of Alabama dropped charges against four of the nine young Black men accused of raping two white women in the “Scottsboro Case.” In 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts — two of whom had been the first men to set foot on the moon — splashed down safely in the Pacific. In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon had to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor.
In 2010, a stampede inside a tunnel crowded with techno music fans left 21 people dead and more than 500 injured at the famed Love Parade festival in western Germany. In 2016, Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2019, in a day of congressional testimony, Robert Mueller dismissed President Donald Trump’s claim of “total exoneration” in Mueller’s probe of Russia’s 2016 election interference. Today’s Birthdays: Political cartoonist Pat Oliphant is 88. Comedian Ruth Buzzi is 87. Actor Chris Sarandon is 81. Actor Robert Hays is 76. Actor Lynda Carter is 72. Movie director Gus Van Sant is 71. Former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is 70. Country singer Pam Tillis is 66. Basketball Hall of Famer Karl Malone is 60. Retired MLB All-Star Barry Bonds is 59. Actor Kadeem Hardison is 58. Actor-singer Kristin Chenoweth is 55. Actor-singer Jennifer Lopez is 54. Actor Eric Szmanda is 48. Country singer Jerrod Niemann is 44. Actor Anna Paquin is 41. Actor Sarah Greene is 39. NHL center Patrice Bergeron is 38. Actor Megan Park is 37. Actor Mara Wilson is 36.