Today in History
Today is Friday, July 23, the 204th day of 2021. There are 161 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 23, 2003, Massachusetts’ attorney general issued a report saying clergy members and others in the Boston Archdiocese probably had sexually abused more than 1,000 people over a period of six decades.
On this date:
In 1829, William Austin Burt received a patent for his “typographer,” a forerunner of the typewriter.
In 1945, French Marshal Henri Petain (ahn-REE’ pay-TAN’), who had headed the pro-Axis
Vichy (vee-shee) government during World War II, went on trial, charged with treason. (He was convicted and condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison. On this date in 1951, Petain died in prison.)
In 1958, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II named the first four women to peerage in the House of Lords.
In 1967, five days of deadly rioting erupted in Detroit as an early morning police raid on an unlicensed bar resulted in a confrontation with local residents that escalated into violence that spread into other parts of the city; 43 people, mostly Blacks, were killed.
In 1982, actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were killed when a helicopter crashed on top of them during filming of a Vietnam War scene for “Twilight Zone: The Movie.” (Director John Landis and four associates were later acquitted of manslaughter charges.)
In 1983, an Air Canada Boeing 767 ran out of fuel while flying from Montreal to Edmonton; the pilots were able to glide the jetliner to a safe emergency landing in Gimli, Manitoba. (The neardisaster occurred because the fuel had been erroneously measured in pounds instead of kilograms at a time when Canada was converting to the metric system.)
In 1990, President George
H.W. Bush announced his choice of Judge David Souter of New Hampshire to succeed the retiring Justice William J. Brennan on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1997, the search for Andrew Cunanan (koo-NAN’-an), the suspected killer of designer Gianni Versace (JAH’-nee vur-SAH’-chee) and others, ended as police found his body on a houseboat in Miami Beach, an apparent suicide.
In 1999, space shuttle Columbia blasted off with the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope and Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a U.S. space flight.
In 2003, a new audiotape purported to be from toppled dictator Saddam Hussein called on Iraqis to resist the
U.S. occupation.
In 2006, Tiger Woods became the first player since Tom Watson in 1982-83 to win consecutive British Open titles.
In 2017, a tractor trailer was found in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas, crammed with dozens of immigrants; ten died and many more were treated at a hospital for dehydration and heat stroke. (The driver, James Bradley Jr., was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to transporting the immigrants resulting in death.)
Ten years ago: Singer Amy Winehouse, 27, was found dead in her London home from accidental alcohol poisoning. Retired Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, the first foreign-born chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, died at Madigan Army Medical Center near Tacoma, Washington, at age 75. Nguyen Cao Ky, 80, the flamboyant former air force general who’d ruled South Vietnam for two years during the Vietnam war, died in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A bullet train crash in southern China claimed 40 lives.
Five years ago: A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-packed clothing among a large crowd of demonstrators in the Afghan capital, killing at least 80 people; the Islamic State group claimed responsibility.
One year ago: In response to an ACLU lawsuit, a federal judge blocked federal agents in Portland, Oregon from arresting or using physical force against journalists and legal observers at the ongoing protests there. In a shift from his earlier demand for a full reopening of the nation’s schools, President Donald Trump acknowledged that some schools might need to delay reopening in the fall as the coronavirus continued to surge. France reported a sharp uptick in coronavirus cases as people let down their guard heading into the country’s summer break. The virus-delayed and shortened major league baseball season began with the World Series champion Washington Nationals hosting the New York Yankees at an empty Nationals Park; Dr. Anthony Fauci threw out the ceremonial first ball. (The Yankees won, 4-1, in a game halted by rain.)
Today’s Birthdays: Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is 85. Actor Ronny Cox is
83. Actor Larry Manetti is 78. Rock singer David Essex is 74. Singersongwriter-politician John Hall is
73. Actor Belinda Montgomery is
71. Rock musician Blair Thornton (Bachman Turner Overdrive) is 71. Actor-writer Lydia Cornell is 68. Actor Woody Harrelson is 60. Rock musician Martin Gore (Depeche Mode) is 60. Actor Eriq Lasalle is
59. Rock musician Yuval Gabay is 58. Rock musician Slash is 56.