Today in history

On Aug. 7, 1782, George Washington established the Order of the PurpleHeart, a decoration to recognize merit in enlisted men and noncommissioned officers.

In 1789 the War Department was established by Congress.

In 1876 Mata Hari, the WorldWar I spyandcourtesan, was born in Leeuwarden, theNetherlands.

In 1903 archaeologist and anthropologist Louis Leakey was born in Kabete, Kenya.

In 1904 Ralph Bunche, the American diplomat who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950, was born in Detroit.

In1912 delegates at theProgressive Party’s first national convention, held in Chicago, nominated Theodore Roosevelt for president.

In 1927 the Peace Bridge, connecting Buffalo with Fort Erie, Ontario, was dedicated at ceremonies attended by Vice President Charles Dawes and the Prince ofWales.

In1934 theU.S. Court ofAppeals upheld a lower court ruling striking down the government’s attempt to ban the James Joyce novel “Ulysses.”

In 1937 bluesman Magic Slim was born Morris Holt inTorrence, Miss.

In 1942 U.S. forces landed on Guadalcanal in the South Pacific in World War II. Also in 1942 writer and radio entertainer Garrison Keillor was born in Anoka, Minn.

In 1947 the balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki reached Polynesia after carrying six men 4,300 miles across the Pacific.

In 1959 the satellite Explorer-6 transmitted the first view of Earth from space.

In1964 Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, giving President Lyndon Johnson broad powers in dealingwith reportedNorth Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces.

In 1971Apollo 15 returned to Earth safely despite the failure of one of its three parachutes during splashdown.

In 1974 French stuntman Philippe Petit walked a tightrope strung between the twin towers of the World Trade Center inNew York.

In 1989 a small plane carryingU.S. Rep. MickeyLeland, D-Texas, and 15 other people disappeared during a flight in Ethiopia. (The wreckage of the plane was found six days later with no survivors.)

In 1990 President George H.W. Bush ordered U.S. troops and warplanes to Saudi Arabia to guard the oil-rich desert kingdom against a possible invasion by Iraq.

In1997Wade Boggs became the first major league baseball player to homer for his 3,000th hit.

In1998 nearly simultaneous terrorist bombs demolished the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans.

In 2000 Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential candidate, selected Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut as his running mate. Lieberman was the first Jewish person torunon a major party’s presidential ticket.

In 2002 former ImClone Systems Chief Executive SamuelWaksalwas indicted in New York on charges of obstruction of justice and bank fraud in addition to previous securities fraud and perjury charges. (Waksal later pleaded guilty and was sentenced tomore than seven years in prison.)

In 2003 a bombing outside the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad killed 19 people.

In 2006 oil prices jumped after BP said it had discovered corrosion so severe, it would have to replace 16 miles of pipeline at the huge Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska.

In 2012 Jared Loughner pleaded guilty to killing six people and injuring 13, including then-Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, on Jan. 8, 2011, inTucson, Ariz.

In 2013 President Barack Obama canceled a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow six days afterRussia granted former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snow den temporary asylum.

In 2014 President Barack Obama authorized U.S. air strikes against Sun ni militants in northern Iraq. Also in 2014 Russia extended the residency of former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden to three more years.

In 2015 the Hamburg, N.Y., chief of police confirmed his department was investigating Patrick Kane following a woman’s complaint about an incident at the Blackhawk star’s mansion in his hometown a week earlier. Also in 2015 two massive attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan, one near a government and military complex ina residential area and the other a suicide bombing outside a police academy, killed at least 35 people; officials blamed the Taliban. Also in 2015 a federal jury convicted a former Russian military tank commander of planning and leading a Taliban attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan, making Irek Hamidullin the first enemy combatant captured on a foreign battlefield to be convicted in U.S. civilian court of being a terrorist.

In 2016 an accident on a 17-story waterslide at Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City, Kansas, claimed the life of a 10-year-old boy.