Today In History

Today is Tuesday, July 25, the 206th day of 2017. There are 159 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

› 1967: A full-page ad in The Times (of London) called for the legalization of marijuana. Among the signatories were all four of the Beatles, one of whom, Paul McCartney, paid for the ad.

ON THIS DATE

› 1917: Nikon Corp. had its beginnings with the merger of three optical manufacturers in Japan.

› 1946: The United States detonated an atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the first underwater test of the device.

› 1952: Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.

› 1956: The Italian liner SS Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm off the New England coast late at night and began sinking; 51 people — 46 from the Andrea Doria, five from the Stockholm — were killed. (The Andrea Doria capsized and sank the following morning.)

› 1975: The musical “A Chorus Line” opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre, beginning a run of 6,137 performances.

› 1984: Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space as she carried out more than three hours of experiments outside the orbiting space station Salyut 7.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Actress Barbara Harris is 82. Folk-pop singer-musician Bruce Woodley (The Seekers) is 75. Rock musician Jim McCarty (The Yardbirds) is 74. Model-actress Iman is 62. Cartoonist Ray Billingsley (“Curtis”) is 60. Rock musician Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) is 59. Celebrity chef/TV personality Geoffrey Zakarian is 58. Actress-singer Bobbie Eakes is 56. Actress Katherine Kelly Lang is 56. Actress Illeana Douglas is

52. Country singer Marty Brown is 52. Actor Matt LeBlanc is 50. Actress Wendy Raquel Robinson is 50. Rock musician Paavo Lotjonen (Apocalyptica) is 49. Actor D.B. Woodside is 48. Actress Miriam Shor is 46. Actor David Denman is 44. Actor Jay R. Ferguson is

43. Actor James Lafferty is 32. Actress Shantel VanSanten is 32. Actor Michael Welch is 30. Classical singer Faryl Smith is 22. Actress Meg Donnelly (TV: “American Housewife”) is 16. Actor Pierce Gagnon is 12.