TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Tuesday, July 13, the 194th day of 2021. There are 171 days left in the year.

On this date:

1787: The Congress of the Confederation adopted the Northwest Ordinance, which established a government in the Northwest Territory, an area corresponding to the present-day Midwest and Upper Midwest.

1863: Deadly rioting against the Civil War military draft erupted in New York City. (The insurrection was put down three days later.)

1939: Frank Sinatra made his first commercial recording, “From the Bottom of My Heart” and “Melancholy Mood,” with Harry James and his Orchestra for the Brunswick label.

1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to be U.S. Solicitor General; Marshall became the first Black jurist appointed to the post. (Two years later, Johnson nominated Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court.)

1972: George McGovern received the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Miami Beach.

1973: Former presidential aide Alexander P. Butterfield revealed to Senate Watergate Committee staff members the existence of President Richard Nixon’s secret White House taping system. (Butterfield’s public revelation came three days later.)

1974: The Senate Watergate Committee proposed sweeping reforms in an effort to prevent another Watergate scandal.

1985: “Live Aid,” an international rock concert in London, Philadelphia, Moscow and Sydney, took place to raise money for Africa’s starving people.

1999: Angel Maturino Resendiz, suspected of being the “Railroad Killer,” surrendered in El Paso, Texas. (Resendiz was executed in 2006.)

2006: Israel imposed a naval blockade against Lebanon and blasted the Beirut airport and army air bases; Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets into Israel.

2013: A jury in Sanford, Florida, cleared neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman of all charges in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the Black teenager whose killing unleashed furious debate over racial profiling, self-defense and equal justice.