Today’s snapshot of what is going on locally

Turn to the Community Page today and every day for upcoming area activities and a look at local history.

Today is Saturday, July 18, the 200th day of 2020. There are 166 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 18, 2013, Detroit, which was once the very symbol of American industrial might, became the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, its finances ravaged and its neighborhoods hollowed out by a long, slow decline in population and auto manufacturing. On this date: In 1863, during the Civil War, Union troops spearheaded by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, made up of Black soldiers, charged Confederate-held Fort Wagner on Morris Island, S.C. The Confederates were able to repel the Northerners, who suffered heavy losses; the 54th’s commander, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, was among those who were killed.

In 1872, Britain enacted voting by secret ballot.

In 1913, comedian Red Skelton was born in Vincennes, Ind.

In 1918, South African antiapartheid leader and president Nelson Mandela was born in the village of Mvezo.

In 1940, the Democratic National Convention at Chicago Stadium nominated President Franklin D. Roosevelt

(who was monitoring the proceedings at the White House) for an unprecedented third term in office; earlier in the day, Eleanor Roosevelt spoke to the convention, becoming the first presidential spouse to address such a gathering.

In 1944, Hideki Tojo was removed as Japanese premier and war minister because of setbacks suffered by his country in World War II. American forces in France captured the Normandy town of St. Lo.

In 1964, nearly a week of rioting erupted in New York’s Harlem neighborhood following the fatal police shooting of a Black teenager, James Powell, two days earlier.

In 1969, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., left a party on Chappaquiddick (chap-uh-KWIH’-dihk) Island near Martha’s Vineyard with Mary Jo Kopechne (kohPEHK’-nee), 28; some time later, Kennedy’s car went off a bridge into the water. Kennedy was able to escape, but Kopechne drowned.

In 1984, gunman James Huberty opened fire at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro (eeSEE’-droh), California, killing 21 people before being shot dead by police. Walter F. Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination in San Francisco.