Today in history
On July 8, 1497, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama set sail from Lisbon on a voyage that would lead to the discovery of a sea route to India around the southern tip of Africa.
In 1776 Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, in Philadelphia.
In 1889 The Wall Street Journal published its first editions.
In 1947 demolition began in New York to make way for the permanent headquarters of the United Nations.
In 1950 Gen. Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of U.N. forces in South Korea.
In 1975 President Gerald Ford announced he would seek the GOP nomination for the presidency in 1976.
In 1993 a jury in Boise, Idaho, acquitted white separatist Randy Weaver and a codefendant in the slaying of a federal marshal in a shootout at a mountain cabin.
In1994 Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s communist leader since 1948, died at 82 in Pyongyang. Also in 1994, O.J. Simpson was ordered to stand trial on charges of killing his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
In 1995 Chinese- American human-rights activist Harry Wu was arrested in China and charged with obtaining state secrets. (He was convicted of espionage and deported.) Also in 1995, a deadly heat wave began in the nation’s midsection; it claimed more than 800 lives, more than half of them in Illinois.
In 1997 the government and Mayo Clinic warned that the drug combination used for dieting known as “fen-phen” could cause heart and lung damage.
In 2000 Venus Williams beat Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 7-6 (3) for her first Grand Slam title, becoming the first black women’s champion at Wimbledon since Althea Gibson in 1957-58.
In 2011 former first lady Betty Ford, who captivated the nation with her candor and forthright discussion of her battles with breast cancer, prescription drug addiction and alcoholism, died; she was 93.
In 2014 Israel launched Operation Protective Edge across the Gaza Strip after a wave of rocket launches by the militant Palestinian group Hamas. (The death toll in the eventual seven-week conflict included more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.)