Today in history

On July 26, 1775, Benjamin Franklin became the first postmaster general.

In 1788 New York became the 11th state to ratify the Constitution.

In 1875 Carl Jung, the founder of analytic psychology, was born in Kesswil, Switzerland.

In 1943 Rolling Stones lead

singer Mick Jagger was born in Dartford, England.

In 1945 Winston Churchill resigned as Britain’s prime minister after the Labour Party scored a landslide election victory over his Conservatives. (Clement Attlee would be named prime minister.)

In 1947 President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act, which created

the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In 1948 President Harry Truman signed two executive orders banning discrimination in the U.S. armed forces and federal employment.

In 1952 Illinois Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson II was nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

In 1953 Fidel Castro, above, launched a revolt against Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks in eastern Cuba.

In 1956 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.

In 1963 more than 1,000

people were killed in an earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia (now Macedonia).

In 1964 Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa and six others were convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the handling of a union pension fund.

In 1971 Apollo 15 was launched from Cape Kennedy, Fla.

In 1990 President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Americans With Disabilities Act. Also in 1990 the House reprimanded Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., for ethics violations.

In 1996 President Bill Clinton rejected a clemency plea from Jonathan Pollard, who had spent more than 10 years

in prison for spying for Israel.

Also in 1996 swimmer Amy Van Dyken became the first American woman to win four gold medals at a single Olympics as she captured the 50-meter freestyle in Atlanta.

In 2000 a federal judge in New York approved a $1.25 billion settlement between Swiss banks and more than 500,000 plaintiffs who alleged the banks had hoarded money deposited by Holocaust victims.

In 2001 China granted parole to two U.S.-based scholars convicted of spying for Taiwan.

In 2005 America’s manned space program roared back to life with the launch of Discovery, 2 1⁄2 years after the Columbia disaster.

/UPI