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The first atomic bomb test is successfully exploded




1945
July 16


On July 16, 1945, at 5:29:45 a.m., the Manhattan Project yields explosive results as the first
atom bomb is successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Plans for the creation of a uranium bomb by the Allies were established as early as 1939, when
Italian emigre physicist Enrico Fermi met with U.S. Navy department officials at Columbia University
to discuss the use of fissionable materials for military purposes. That same year, Albert Einstein
signed a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt supporting the theory that an uncontrolled nuclear
chain reaction had great potential as a basis for a weapon of mass destruction.

In February 1940, the federal government granted a total of $6,000 for research. But in early 1942,
with the United States now at war with the Axis powers, and fear mounting that Germany was
working on its own uranium bomb, the War Department took a more active interest, and limits on
resources for the project were removed.


Brigadier-General Leslie R. Groves, himself an engineer, was now in complete charge of a project to
assemble the greatest minds in science and discover how to harness the power of the atom as a
means of bringing the war to a decisive end. The Manhattan Project (so-called because of where the
research began) would wind its way through many locations during the early period of theoretical
exploration, most importantly, the University of Chicago, where Enrico Fermi successfully set off the
first fission chain reaction. But the Project took final form in the desert of New Mexico, where, in 1943,
Robert J. Oppenheimer began directing Project Y at a laboratory at Los Alamos, along with such minds
as Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, and Fermi. Here theory and practice came together, as the problems of
achieving critical mass—a nuclear explosion—and the construction of a deliverable bomb were worked out.


Finally, on the morning of July 16, in the New Mexico desert 120 miles south of Santa Fe, the first atomic
bomb was detonated. The scientists and a few dignitaries had removed themselves 10,000 yards away to
observe as the first mushroom cloud of searing light stretched 40,000 feet into the air and generated the
destructive power of 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT. The tower on which the bomb sat when detonated
was vaporized.

The question now became—on whom was the bomb to be dropped? Germany was the original target, but
the Germans had already surrendered. The only belligerent remaining was Japan.



ALSO ON THIS DAY



1990S
1995
Amazon opens for business

On July 16, 1995, Amazon officially opens for business as an
online bookseller. Within a month, the fledgling retailer had
shipped books to all 50 U.S. states and to 45 countries. Founder
Jeff Bezos’s motto was “get big fast,” and Seattle-based Amazon
eventually morphed into an ...
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1990S
JFK Jr. killed in plane crash

On July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy, Jr.; his wife, Carolyn Bessette
Kennedy; and her sister, Lauren Bessette, die when the single-engine
plane that Kennedy was piloting crashes into the Atlantic Ocean near
Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr.,
was born on ...
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RELIGION
1769
First Catholic mission in California dedicated

Father Junípero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan missionary, founds the
first Catholic mission in California on the site of present-day San Diego.
After Serra blessed his new outpost of Christianity in a high mass, the
royal standard of Spain was unfurled over the mission, which he ...
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SPACE EXPLORATION
1969
Apollo 11 departs Earth

At 9:32 a.m. EDT, Apollo 11, the first U.S. lunar landing mission, is launched
on a historic journey to the surface of the moon. After traveling 240,000
miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. The next
day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module Eagle, manned ...
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INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1935
World’s first parking meter installed

The world’s first parking meter, known as Park-O-Meter No. 1, is installed
on the southeast corner of what was then First Street and Robinson Avenue
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on July 16, 1935. The parking meter was the
brainchild of a man named Carl C. Magee, who moved to ...
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US GOVERNMENT
1790
Congress declares Washington, D.C. new capital

On July 16, 1790, the young American Congress declares that a swampy,
humid, muddy and mosquito-infested site on the Potomac River between
Maryland and Virginia will be the nation’s permanent capital. “Washington,”
in the newly designated federal “District of Columbia,” was named ...
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U.S. PRESIDENTS
2002
President Bush unveils strategy for homeland security

On July 16, 2002, President George W. Bush announces his plan for
strengthening homeland security in the wake of the shocking
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.,
in which nearly 3,000 people had been killed. In the immediate aftermath of the ...
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ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1951
"Catcher in the Rye" is published

J.D. Salinger’s only full-length novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is published
by Little, Brown on July 16, 1951. The book, about a confused teenager
disillusioned by the adult world, is an instant hit and will be taught in
high schools for decades. ...
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NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT
1990
Earthquake wreaks havoc in the Philippines

More than 1,000 people are killed when a 7.7-magnitude earthquake
strikes Luzon Island in the Philippines on July 16, 1990. The massive
tremor wreaked havoc across a sizeable portion of Luzon, the country’s
largest island, with Baguio City suffering the most devastating effects. ...
read more





CRIME
1979
Jeffrey MacDonald is accused of stabbing his family to death

Jeffrey MacDonald stands trial in North Carolina for the murder of his wife
and children nearly 10 years before. Captain MacDonald, an army doctor
stationed at Fort Bragg, made an emergency call to military police in the
early morning hours of February 17, 1970. Responding ...
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CIVIL WAR
1863
Draft riots continue to rock New York City

The draft riots enter their fourth day in New York City in response to the
Enrollment Act, which was enacted on March 3, 1863. Although avoiding
military service became much more difficult, wealthier citizens could still
pay a commutation fee of $300 to stay at home. Irritation ...
read more


AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1779
Anthony Wayne launches risky attack
against British forces

On July 15, 1779, American Brigadier General Anthony Wayne launches
a coup de main against British fortifications at Stony Point, New York, on
the orders of General George Washington. He earns the moniker “Mad”
Anthony Wayne for the ensuing maneuver. The British fort on the ...
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WORLD WAR I
1918
Romanov family executed,
ending a 300-year imperial dynasty

In Yekaterinburg, Russia, Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed by
the Bolsheviks, bringing an end to the three-century-old Romanov dynasty.
Crowned in 1896, Nicholas was neither trained nor inclined to rule, which
did not help the autocracy he sought to preserve among a ...
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Disneyland opens






1955
July 17



Disneyland, Walt Disney’s metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy and futurism, opens on July 17, 1955.
The $17 million theme park was built on 160 acres of former orange groves in Anaheim, California,
and soon brought in staggering profits. Today, Disneyland hosts more than 18 million visitors a year,
who spend close to $3 billion.

Walt Disney, born in Chicago in 1901, worked as a commercial artist before setting up a small studio
in Los Angeles to produce animated cartoons. In 1928, his short film Steamboat Willy, starring the
character “Mickey Mouse,” was a national sensation. It was the first animated film to use sound, and
Disney provided the voice for Mickey. From there on, Disney cartoons were in heavy demand, but the
company struggled financially because of Disney’s insistence on ever-improving artistic and technical
quality. His first feature-length cartoon, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938), took three years to
complete and was a great commercial success.

Snow White was followed by other feature-length classics for children, such as Pinocchio (1940),
Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942). Fantasia (1940), which coordinated animated segments with famous
classical music pieces, was an artistic and technical achievement. In Song of the South (1946), Disney
combined live actors with animated figures, and beginning with Treasure Island in 1950 the company
added live-action movies to its repertoire. Disney was also one of the first movie studios to produce film
directly for television, and its Zorro and Davy Crockett series were very popular with children.

In the early 1950s, Walt Disney began designing a huge amusement park to be built near Los Angeles.
He intended Disneyland to have educational as well as amusement value and to entertain adults and their
children. Land was bought in the farming community of Anaheim, about 25 miles southeast of Los Angeles,
and construction began in 1954. In the summer of 1955, special invitations were sent out for the opening of
Disneyland on July 17. Unfortunately, the pass was counterfeited and thousands of uninvited people were
admitted into Disneyland on opening day. The park was not ready for the public: food and drink ran out, a
women’s high-heel shoe got stuck in the wet asphalt of Main Street USA, and the Mark Twain Steamboat
nearly capsized from too many passengers.

Disneyland soon recovered, however, and attractions such as the Castle, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Snow White’s
Adventures, Space Station X-1, Jungle Cruise, and Stage Coach drew countless children and their parents.
Special events and the continual building of new state-of-the-art attractions encouraged them to visit again.
In 1965, work began on an even bigger Disney theme park and resort near Orlando, Florida. Walt Disney
died in 1966, and Walt Disney World was opened in his honor on October 1, 1971. Epcot Center, Disney-MGM
Studios, and Animal Kingdom were later added to Walt Disney World, and it remains Florida’s premier tourist
attraction. In 1983, Disneyland Tokyo opened in Japan, and in 1992 Disneyland Paris–or “EuroDisney”–opened
to a mixed reaction in Marne-la-Vallee. Disneyland in Hong Kong opened its doors in September 2005.




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CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
2020
Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis dies

On July 17, 2020, in the midst of a pandemic and a time of
unparalleled racial tensions in the United States, the nation
loses one of the last towering figures of the civil rights movement.
John Lewis, former Chairman of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, a chief ...
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21ST CENTURY
Eric Garner dies in NYPD chokehold

On July 17, 2014, two New York Police Department officers confront
Eric Garner, a 43-year-old African American father of six, for illegally
selling cigarettes. Garner dies after losing consciousness as a police
officer locks him in an illegal chokehold, and within hours, a video ...
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21ST CENTURY
2014
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shot down
over the Ukraine-Russia border

On July 17, halfway through a flight from Amsterdam to Malaysia, a
passenger plane was shot down over the war-torn Ukraine-Russia
Border. All 298 people on board, most of whom were citizens of the
Netherlands, died in the explosion. It was the second Malaysian
Air flight to ...
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1990S
1996
Flight 800 explodes over Long Island

Shortly after takeoff from New York’s Kennedy International Airport,
a TWA Boeing 747 jetliner bound for Paris explodes over the Atlantic
Ocean, killing all 230 people aboard. Flight 800 had just received
clearance to initiate a climb to cruise altitude when it exploded without ...
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SPACE EXPLORATION
1975
Superpowers meet in space

As part of a mission aimed at developing space rescue capability,
the U.S. spacecraft Apollo 18 and the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 19
rendezvous and dock in space. As the hatch was opened between
the two vessels, commanders Thomas P. Stafford and Aleksei Leonov
shook hands and ...
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EXPLORATION
1938
Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan crosses the Atlantic

Douglas Corrigan, the last of the early glory-seeking fliers, takes off
from Floyd Bennett field in Brooklyn, New York, on a flight that would
finally win him a place in aviation history. Eleven years earlier,
American Charles A. Lindbergh had become an international celebrity ...
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INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1920
Three-point seatbelt inventor Nils Bohlin born

Nils Bohlin, the Swedish engineer and inventor responsible for the
three-point lap and shoulder seatbelt–considered one of the most
important innovations in automobile safety–is born on July 17, 1920
in Härnösand, Sweden. Before 1959, only two-point lap belts were
available in ...
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SPORTS
1941
Joe DiMaggio ends 56-game hitting streak

On July 17, 1941, New York Yankees center fielder Joe DiMaggio fails
to get a hit against the Cleveland Guardians (then known as the
Cleveland Indians), which brings his historic 56-game hitting streak
to an end. The record run had captivated the country for two months.
Joseph ...
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U.S. PRESIDENTS
1945
President Harry Truman records his
impressions of meeting Stalin

On July 17, 1945, President Harry S. Truman records his first impressions
of Stalin in his diary. Truman described his initial meeting with the
intimidating Soviet leader as cordial. “Promptly a few minutes before twelve”
the president wrote, “I looked up from the desk and there ...
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WESTWARD EXPANSION
1763
John Jacob Astor is born

Destined to make a fortune from the furs of the American West,
John Jacob Astor is born in modest circumstances in the small German
village of Waldorf. Although the number of foreign immigrants to the U.S.
who succeeded in striking it rich is often exaggerated in the popular ...
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ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1967
Jimi Hendrix drops out as
opening act for The Monkees

On July 17, 1967, one of the oddest musical pairings in history comes
to an end when Jimi Hendrix dropped out as the opening act for
teenybopper sensations The Monkees. The booking of psychedelic
rock god Jimi Hendrix with the made-for-television Monkees was the
brainchild of ...
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WORLD WAR II
1944
An ammunition ship explodes in
the Port Chicago disaster

An ammunition ship explodes while being loaded in Port Chicago, California,
killing 320 people on July 17, 1944. The United States’ World War II military
campaign in the Pacific was in full swing at the time. Poor procedures and
lack of training led to the disaster. Port ...
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WORLD WAR II
1945
Potsdam Conference begins

The final “Big Three” meeting between the United States, the Soviet Union
and Great Britain takes place towards the end of World War II. The decisions
reached at the conference ostensibly settled many of the pressing issues
between the three wartime allies, but the meeting was ...
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Senator Ted Kennedy drives car off bridge
at Chappaquiddick Island







1969
July 18



Shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts
drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond. Kennedy escaped the submerged car,
but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car accident
for 10 hours.

On the evening of July 18, 1969, while most Americans were home watching television reports on the
progress of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission, Kennedy and his cousin Joe Gargan were hosting a
cookout and party at a rented cottage on Chappaquiddick Island, an affluent island near Martha’s Vineyard,
Massachusetts. The party was planned as a reunion for Kopechne and five other women, all veterans
of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Bobby Kennedy was Ted Kennedy’s
older brother, and following Bobby’s assassination in June 1968 Ted took up his family’s political torch.
In 1969, Ted Kennedy was elected majority whip in the U.S. Senate, and he seemed an early front-runner
for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination.

Just after 11 p.m., Kennedy left the party with Kopechne, by his account to drive to the ferry slip where
they would catch a boat back to their respective lodgings in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. While driving
down the main roadway, Kennedy took a sharp turn onto the unpaved Dike Road, drove for a short distance,
and then missed the ramp to a narrow wooden bridge and drove into Poucha Pond. Kennedy, a married man,
claimed the Dike Road excursion was a wrong turn. However, both he and Kopechne had previously driven
down the same road, which led to a secluded ocean beach just beyond the bridge. In addition, Kopechne
had left both her purse and room key at the party.

Kennedy escaped the car and then dove down in an attempt to retrieve Kopechne from the sunken Oldsmobile.
Failing, he stumbled back to the cottage, where he enlisted Gargan and another friend in a second attempt to
save Kopechne. The three men were unsuccessful; her body was not recovered. The trio then went to the
ferry slip, where Kennedy dove into the water and swam back to Edgartown, about a mile away. He returned
to his room at the Shiretown Inn, changed his clothes, and at 2:25 a.m. stepped out of his room when he
spotted the innkeeper, Russell Peachey. He told Peachey that he been awakened by noise next door and asked
what time it was. He then returned to his room.

Was Kennedy trying to establish an alibi? In Leo Damore’s Senatorial Privilege–the Chappaquiddick Cover-up (1988),
the author recounts an interview with Joe Gargan in which Gargan claimed that Kennedy had plotted to
make Kopechne the driver and sole occupant of the automobile. Whatever Kennedy’s intentions, on the
morning of July 19 he went back to Chappaquiddick Island and then returned to Edgartown. At 9:45 a.m.,
10 hours after driving off Dike Road bridge, Kennedy reported the accident to Edgartown Police Chief Dominick
Arena and admitted that he was the driver.

On July 25, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, received a two-month suspended
sentence, and had his license suspended for a year. That evening, in a televised statement, he called the
delayed reporting of the accident “indefensible” but vehemently denied that he been involved in any
improprieties with Kopechne. He also asked his constituents to help him decide whether to continue his
political career. Receiving a positive response, he resumed his senatorial duties at the end of a month.

There is speculation that he used his considerable influence to avoid more serious charges that could have
resulted from the episode. Although the incident on Chappaquiddick Island helped to derail his presidential
hopes, Kennedy continued to serve as a U.S. senator of Massachusetts into the 21st century.
He died in 2009.





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ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1995
Barack Obama’s
“Dreams from My Father” is published

On July 18, 1995, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,
a memoir by a little-known law professor named Barack Obama, is published.
Obama wrote the book before entering politics; 13 years after it was
published, he was elected America’s 44th president. Dreams ...
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ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1989
Sitcom actress murdered; death prompts
anti-stalking legislation

On July 18, 1989, the 21-year-old actress Rebecca Schaeffer is murdered
at her Los Angeles home by Robert John Bardo, a mentally unstable man
who had been stalking her. Schaeffer’s death helped lead to the passage in
California of legislation aimed at preventing stalking. ...
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INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1986
Video of Titanic wreckage released

On July 18, 1986, new close-up videotapes of the sunken ocean liner
Titanic are released to the public. Taken on the first manned expedition
to the wreck, the videotapes are stunning in their clarity and detail,
showing one of the ship’s majestic grand staircases and a ...
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WORLD WAR II
1936
Spanish Civil War breaks out

On July 18, 1936, the Spanish Civil War begins as a revolt by right-wing
Spanish military officers in Spanish Morocco and spreads to mainland
Spain. From the Canary Islands, General Francisco Franco broadcasts a
message calling for all army officers to join the uprising and ...
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U.S. PRESIDENTS
1940
FDR nominated for unprecedented third term

On July 18, 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who first took office in
1933 as America’s 32nd president, is nominated for an unprecedented
third term. Roosevelt, a Democrat, would eventually be elected to a
record four terms in office, the only U.S. president to serve more than ...
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WORLD WAR II
1925
Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” is published

On July 18, 1925, Volume One of Adolf Hitler’s philosophical autobiography,
Mein Kampf, is published. It was a blueprint of his agenda for a Third Reich
and a clear exposition of the nightmare that will envelope Europe from
1939 to 1945. The ...
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U.S. PRESIDENTS
1947
Harry S. Truman signs second Presidential Succession Act

On July 18, 1947, President Harry S. Truman signs the Presidential Succession
Act. This act revised an older succession act that was passed in 1792 during
George Washington’s first term. The original succession act designated the
Senate president pro tempore as the first in line ...
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WESTWARD EXPANSION
1914
Labor activist and singer Joe Hill sentenced to death

Convicted of murder on meager evidence, the singing Wobbly Joe Hill is
sentenced to be executed in Utah. A native of Sweden who immigrated
to the U.S. in 1879, Joe Hill joined the International Workers of the World
(IWW) in 1910. The IWW was an industrial union that rejected the ...
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ANCIENT ROME
64
Nero’s Rome burns

The great fire of Rome breaks out and destroys much of the city beginning
on July 18 in the year 64. Despite the well-known stories, there is no
evidence that the Roman emperor, Nero, either started the fire or played
the fiddle while it burned. Still, he did use the disaster ...
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CRIME
1984
Twenty-one people are shot to death at McDonald’s

James Oliver Huberty opens fire in a crowded McDonald’s restaurant in
San Ysidro, California, killing 21 people and wounding 19 others with
several semi-automatic weapons. Minutes earlier, Huberty had left home,
telling his wife, “I’m going hunting…hunting for humans.” Huberty, ...
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CIVIL WAR
1863
Assault of Battery Wagner and
death of Robert Gould Shaw

Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and 272 of his troops are killed in an
assault on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina. Shaw was
commander of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, perhaps the most famous
regiment of African American troops during the war. Fort Wagner stood on ...
read more


AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1792
Naval hero John Paul Jones dies in Paris

On July 18, 1792, the Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones
dies in his Paris apartment, where he was still awaiting a commission
as the United States consul to Algiers. Commander Jones, remembered
as one of the most daring and successful naval commanders of the
American ...
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George Washington Carver begins
experimental project with Henry Ford






1942
July 19



The agricultural chemist George Washington Carver, head of Alabama’s famed Tuskegee Institute,
arrives in Dearborn, Michigan at the invitation of Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company.

Born to slave parents in Missouri during the Civil War, Carver managed to get a high school education
while working as a farmhand in Kansas in his late 20s. Turned away by a Kansas university because
he was an African American, Carver later became the first black student at Iowa State Agricultural
College in Ames, where he obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 1896, Carver left Iowa
to head the department of agriculture at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, a school
founded by the leading black educator Booker T. Washington. By convincing farmers in the South to
plant peanuts as an alternative to cotton, Carver helped resuscitate the region’s agriculture; in the
process, he became one of the most respected and influential scientists in the country.

Like Carver, Ford was deeply interested in the regenerative properties of soil and the potential of
alternative crops such as peanuts and soybeans to produce plastics, paint, fuel and other products.
Ford had long believed that the world would eventually need a substitute for gasoline, and supported
the production of ethanol (or grain alcohol) as an alternative fuel. In 1942, he would showcase a car
with a lightweight plastic body made from soybeans. Ford and Carver began corresponding via letter
in 1934, and their mutual admiration deepened after Carver made a visit to Michigan in 1937. As
Douglas Brinkley writes in “Wheels for the World,” his history of Ford, the automaker donated generously
to the Tuskegee Institute, helping finance Carver’s experiments, and Carver in turn spent a period of
time helping to oversee crops at the Ford plantation in Ways, Georgia.

By the time World War II began, Ford had made repeated journeys to Tuskegee to convince Carver to
come to Dearborn and help him develop a synthetic rubber to help compensate for wartime rubber shortages.
Carver arrived on July 19, 1942, and set up a laboratory in an old water works building in Dearborn. He and
Ford experimented with different crops, including sweet potatoes and dandelions, eventually devising a
way to make the rubber substitute from goldenrod, a plant weed. Carver died in January 1943, Ford in
April 1947, but the relationship between their two institutions continued to flourish.




ALSO ON THIS DAY




WOMEN'S RIGHTS
1848
Seneca Falls Convention begins

At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, a woman’s rights
convention—the first ever held in the United States—convenes with
almost 200 women in attendance. The convention was organized by
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two abolitionists who met
at the 1840 ...
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GREAT BRITAIN
1553
Lady Jane Grey deposed as Queen of England

After only nine days as the monarch of England, Lady Jane Grey is
deposed in favor of her cousin Mary. The 15-year-old Lady Jane,
beautiful and intelligent, had only reluctantly agreed to be put on
the throne. The decision would result in her execution.
Lady Jane Grey was the ...
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ANCIENT EGYPT
1799
Rosetta Stone found

Although there is some debate about the exact date, on what
was likely July 19, 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian
campaign, a French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed
with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles
east of Alexandria. The ...
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CRIME
1879
Doc Holliday kills for the first time

Doc Holliday commits his first murder, killing a man for shooting up
his New Mexico saloon. Despite his formidable reputation as a deadly
gunslinger, Doc Holliday only engaged in eight shootouts during his
life, and it has only been verified that he killed two men. Still, the ...
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COLD WAR
1956
United States withdraws offer
of aid for Aswan Dam

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announces that the United States
is withdrawing its offer of financial aid to Egypt to help with the
construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. The action drove
Egypt further toward an alliance with the Soviet Union and was a ...
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AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1779
Massachusetts begins ill-fated Penobscot Expedition

On July 19, 1779, Massachusetts, without consulting either Continental
political or military authorities, launches a 4,000-man naval expedition
commanded by Commodore Dudley Saltonstall, Adjutant General Peleg
Wadsworth, Brigadier General Solomon Lovell and Lieutenant Colonel ...
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WORLD WAR II
1943
America bombs Rome

On July 19, 1943, the United States bombs railway yards in Rome in an
attempt to break the will of the Italian people to resist—as Hitler lectures
their leader, Benito Mussolini, on how to prosecute the war further.
On July 16, President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime ...
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Neil Armstrong walks on moon





1969
July 20



At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these
words to more than a billion people listening at home:
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the
surface of the moon.

The American effort to send astronauts to the moon has its origins in a famous appeal President
John F. Kennedy made to a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961: “I believe this nation
should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon
and returning him safely to Earth.” At the time, the United States was still trailing the Soviet Union
in space developments, and Cold War-era America welcomed Kennedy’s bold proposal.

In 1966, after five years of work by an international team of scientists and engineers, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) conducted the first unmanned Apollo mission, testing
the structural integrity of the proposed launch vehicle and spacecraft combination. Then, on
January 27, 1967, tragedy struck at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, when a fire broke
out during a manned launch-pad test of the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rocket.
Three astronauts were killed in the fire.

Despite the setback, NASA and its thousands of employees forged ahead, and in October 1968, Apollo 7,
the first manned Apollo mission, orbited Earth and successfully tested many of the sophisticated systems
needed to conduct a moon journey and landing. In December of the same year, Apollo 8 took three
astronauts to the far side of the moon and orbited it 10 times before returning, and in March 1969 Apollo 9
tested the lunar module for the first time while in Earth orbit. Then in May, the three astronauts of Apollo 10
took the first complete Apollo spacecraft in 31 orbits around the moon in a dry run for the scheduled
July landing mission.

At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, with the world watching, Apollo 11 took off from Kennedy Space Center with
astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins aboard. Armstrong, a 38-year-old research
pilot, was the commander of the mission. After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into
a lunar orbit on July 19. The next day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module Eagle, manned by Armstrong and
Aldrin, separated from the command module, where Collins remained. Two hours later, the Eagle began its
descent to the lunar surface, and at 4:18 p.m. the craft touched down on the southwestern edge of the
Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong immediately radioed to Mission Control in Houston, Texas, a famous message:
“The Eagle has landed.”

At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of the original schedule, Armstrong opened the hatch of the lunar module.
As he made his way down the lunar module’s ladder, a television camera attached to the craft recorded his
progress and beamed the signal back to Earth, where hundreds of millions watched in great anticipation.
At 10:56 p.m., Armstrong spoke his famous quote, which he later contended was slightly garbled by his
microphone and meant to be “that’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” He then planted
his left foot on the gray, powdery surface, took a cautious step forward, and humanity had walked on the moon.

“Buzz” Aldrin joined him on the moon’s surface at 11:11 p.m., and together they took photographs of the
terrain, planted a U.S. flag, ran a few simple scientific tests, and spoke with President Richard M. Nixon via
Houston. By 1:11 a.m. on July 21, both astronauts were back in the lunar module and the hatch was closed.
The two men slept that night on the surface of the moon, and at 1:54 p.m. the Eagle began its ascent back
to the command module. Among the items left on the surface of the moon was a plaque that read:
“Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon–July 1969 A.D–We came in peace for all mankind.”

At 5:35 p.m., Armstrong and Aldrin successfully docked and rejoined Collins, and at 12:56 a.m. on July 22
Apollo 11 began its journey home, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:51 p.m. on July 24.

There would be five more successful lunar landing missions, and one unplanned lunar swing-by, Apollo 13. The
last men to walk on the moon, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of the Apollo 17 mission, left
the lunar surface on December 14, 1972. The Apollo program was a costly and labor intensive endeavor,
involving an estimated 400,000 engineers, technicians, and scientists, and costing $24 billion
(close to $100 billion in today’s dollars). The expense was justified by Kennedy’s 1961 mandate to beat the
Soviets to the moon, and after the feat was accomplished ongoing missions lost their viability.






ALSO ON THIS DAY



INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1865
Pierre Lallement, inventor of the bicycle,
arrives in the U.S.

On July 20, 1865, a Frenchman named Pierre Lallement
arrives in the United States, carrying the plans and
components for the first modern bicycle. Lallement
constructed and patented the first bicycle in the United States,
but received no significant reward or recognition for ...
read more





CRIME
2012
Aurora shooting leaves 12 dead, 70 wounded

On July 20, 2012, a mass shooting occurs at a movie theater
in Aurora, a Denver suburb, killing 12 people—the youngest
a 6-year-old girl—and injuring at least 70 others. The Aurora
shooting took place shortly after the start of a crowded
midnight showing of The Dark Knight ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1963
Jan and Dean’s “Surf City” hits #1

“Two girls for every boy!” went the immortal opening line
from Jan and Dean’s “Surf City,” the song that reached the
top of the U.S. pop charts on July 20, 1963. It was a claim
that wasn’t actually supported by the facts, but it helped
create a popular image of California as a ...
read more





NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY
1881
Sitting Bull surrenders

Five years after Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer’s
infamous defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn,
Hunkpapa Teton Sioux leader Sitting Bull surrenders
to the U.S. Army, which promises amnesty for him and
his followers. Sitting Bull had been a major leader in
the 1876 ...
read more





SPACE EXPLORATION
1976
Viking 1 lands on Mars

On the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar
landing, the Viking 1 lander, an unmanned U.S.
planetary probe, successfully lands on the surface
of Mars. Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975,
and arrived at Mars on June 19, 1976. The first month
of its orbit was devoted to ...
read more





U.S. PRESIDENTS
1969
President Nixon watches first lunar landing

On July 20, 1969, President Richard Nixon, along with
millions of others, watches as two American astronauts
walk on the moon. Later that evening, Nixon recorded
succinctly in his diary “the President held an interplanetary
conversation with Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong ...
read more


WESTWARD EXPANSION
1889
Homesteaders murdered by Wyoming ranchers

Having made the mistake of homesteading on land previously
controlled by a Wyoming cattle king, homesteaders Ella Watson
and James Averell are accused of rustling and hanged. As the
days of the open range cattle industry faded, conflicts between
powerful western cattle barons and ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1973
Actor and martial-arts expert
Bruce Lee dies at age 32

On July 20, 1973, the actor and martial-arts expert
Bruce Lee dies in Hong Kong at age 32 from a brain
edema possibly caused by a reaction to a prescription
painkiller. During Lee’s all-too-brief career, he became
a movie star in Asia and, posthumously, in America. Jun Fan ...
read more





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT
1977
Great flood hits Johnstown

A flash flood hits Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on
July 20, 1977, killing 84 people and causing millions
of dollars in damages. This flood came 88 years
after the infamous Great Flood of 1889 that killed
more than 2,000 people in Johnstown. As they had
in the first flood, the dams ...
read more





CRIME
1984
A serial-killing couple is apprehended

Alton Coleman and Debra Brown are apprehended in
Evanston, Illinois, after a particularly vicious two-month
crime spree that left eight people dead and many more
injured. Coleman had been added to the special eleventh
slot on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List for actively dangerous ...
read more





COLD WAR
1948
President Truman issues peacetime draft

President Harry S. Truman institutes a military draft with a
proclamation calling for nearly 10 million men to register for
military service within the next two months. Truman’s action
came during increasing Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union.
Following World War II, the ...
read more


WORLD WAR II
1944
Assassination plot against Hitler fails

On July 20, 1944, Hitler cheats death as a bomb planted in a
briefcase goes off, but fails to kill him. High-ranking German
officials had made up their minds that Hitler must die. He was
leading Germany in a suicidal war on two fronts, and assassination
was the only way to stop ...
read more

The First Battle of Bull Run






1861
July 21



In the first major land battle of the Civil War, a large Union force under General Irvin McDowell
is routed by a Confederate army under General Pierre G.T. Beauregard.

Three months after the Civil War erupted at Fort Sumter, Union military command still believed that
the Confederacy could be crushed quickly and with little loss of life. In July, this overconfidence led
to a premature offensive into northern Virginia by General McDowell. Searching out the Confederate
forces, McDowell led 34,000 troops—mostly inexperienced and poorly trained militiamen—toward
the railroad junction of Manassas, located just 30 miles from Washington, D.C. Alerted to the Union
advance, General Beauregard massed some 20,000 troops there and was soon joined by
General Joseph Johnston, who brought some 9,000 more troops by railroad.

On the morning of July 21, hearing of the proximity of the two opposing forces, hundreds of civilians–men,
women, and children–turned out to watch the first major battle of the Civil War. The fighting commenced
with three Union divisions crossing the Bull Run stream, and the Confederate flank was driven back to
Henry House Hill. However, at this strategic location, Beauregard had fashioned a strong defensive line
anchored by a brigade of Virginia infantry under General Thomas J. Jackson. Firing from a concealed
slope, Jackson’s men repulsed a series of Federal charges, winning Jackson his famous nickname “Stonewall.”

Meanwhile, Confederate cavalry under J.E.B. Stuart captured the Union artillery, and Beauregard ordered
a counterattack on the exposed Union right flank. The rebels came charging down the hill, yelling furiously,
and McDowell’s line was broken, forcing his troops in a hasty retreat across Bull Run. The retreat soon
became an unorganized flight, and supplies littered the road back to Washington. Union forces endured
a loss of 3,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in action while the Confederates suffered 2,000 casualties.
The scale of this bloodshed horrified not only the frightened spectators at Bull Run but also the U.S.
government in Washington, which was faced with an uncertain military strategy in quelling the
“Southern insurrection.”





ALSO ON THIS DAY



SPACE EXPLORATION
2011
NASA’s final space shuttle mission comes to an end

On July 21, 2011, NASA’s space shuttle program completes
its final, and 135th, mission, when the shuttle Atlantis lands
at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. During the program’s
30-year history, its five orbiters—Columbia, Challenger,
Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour—carried more ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1899
Ernest Hemingway is born

On July 21, 1899, Ernest Miller Hemingway, author of
such novels as “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and
“The Old Man and the Sea,” is born in Oak Park, Illinois.
The influential American literary icon became known
for his straightforward prose and use of understatement.
Hemingway, who ...
read more


GREAT BRITAIN
2005
Bombers attempt to attack London transit system

On July 21, 2005, terrorists attempt to attack the London
transit system by planting bombs on three subways and on
one bus; none of the bombs detonate completely. The
attempted attack came exactly two weeks after terrorists
killed 56 people, including themselves, and wounded 700 ...
read more





AFRICA
1970
Aswan High Dam completed

After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam
across the Nile River in Egypt is completed on
July 21, 1970. More than two miles long at its crest,
the massive $1 billion dam ended the cycle of flood
and drought in the Nile River region, and exploited a
tremendous source of ...
read more


WORLD WAR II
1944
Hitler to Germany: “I’m still alive”

On July 21, 1944, Adolf Hitler takes to the airwaves to
announce that the attempt on his life has failed and
that “accounts will be settled.” Hitler had survived the
bomb blast that was meant to take his life. He had
suffered punctured eardrums, some burns and minor
wounds, but ...
read more





WESTWARD EXPANSION
1865
Wild Bill Hickok fights first western showdown

In what may be the first true western showdown,
Wild Bill Hickok shoots Dave Tutt dead in the market
square of Springfield, Missouri. Hollywood movies and
dime novels notwithstanding, the classic western
showdown—also called a walkdown—happened only
rarely in the American West. ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
2007
Final Harry Potter book released

On July 21, 2007, the seventh and final Harry Potter novel,
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is released, with an
initial print run of 12 million copies in the United States alone.
Like each of the previous Harry Potter novels, Deathly Hallows
was slated to be made into a ...
read more





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT
365
Tsunami hits Alexandria, Egypt

On July 21, 365, a powerful earthquake off the coast of Greece
causes a tsunami that devastates the city of Alexandria, Egypt.
Although there were no measuring tools at the time, scientists
now estimate that the quake was actually two tremors in succession,
the largest of which ...
read more


CRIME
1925
The “Trial of the Century”
draws national attention

Schoolteacher John T. Scopes is convicted of violating Tennessee’s
law against teaching evolution in public schools. The case debated
in the so-called “Trial of the Century” was never really in doubt;
the jury only conferred for a few moments in the hallway before returning to ...
read more





COLD WAR
1955
President Eisenhower presents his “Open Skies” plan

President Dwight D. Eisenhower presents his “Open Skies” plan at
the 1955 Geneva summit meeting with representatives of France,
Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The plan, though never accepted,
laid the foundation for President Ronald Reagan’s later policy of “trust, but ...
read more


INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1960
Germany passes controversial “Volkswagen Law”

On July 21, 1960, the German government passes the “Law Concerning
the Transfer of the Share Rights in Volkswagenwerk Limited Liability
Company into Private Hands,” known informally as the “Volkswagen Law.”
Founded in 1937 and originally under the control of Adolf Hitler’s ...
read more

John Dillinger gunned down





1934
July 22


Outside Chicago’s Biograph Theatre, notorious criminal John Dillinger—America’s
“Public Enemy No. 1″—is killed in a hail of bullets fired by federal agents. In a fiery
bank-robbing career that lasted just over a year, Dillinger and his associates robbed
11 banks for more than $300,000, broke jail and narrowly escaped capture multiple
times, and killed seven police officers and three federal agents.

John Dillinger was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1903. A juvenile delinquent, he
was arrested in 1924 after a botched mugging. He pleaded guilty, hoping for clemency,
but was sentenced to 10 to 20 years at Pendleton Reformatory. While in prison, he
made several failed escapes and was adopted by a group of professional bank robbers
led by Harry Pierpont, who taught him the ways of their trade. When his friends were
transferred to Indiana’s tough Michigan City Prison,
he requested to be transferred there too.

In May 1933, Dillinger was paroled, and he met up with accomplices of Pierpont. Dillinger’s
plan was to raise enough funds to finance a prison break by Pierpont and the others,
who then would take him on as a member of their elite robbery gang. In four months,
Dillinger and his gang robbed four Indiana and Ohio banks, two grocery stores, and a
drug store for a total of more than $40,000. He gained notoriety as a sharply dressed
and athletic gunman who at one bank leapt over the high teller railing into the vault.

With the help of two of Pierpont’s women friends, Dillinger set up the jailbreak. Guns
were bought and arranged to be smuggled into Michigan City Prison. Prison workers
were bribed, and a safe house was set up. On September 22, however, just days before
the jailbreak was scheduled to occur, Dillinger was arrested in Dayton, Ohio.
Four days later, Pierpont and nine others broke out of Michigan City. Pierpont’s gang
robbed a bank in Ohio for $11,000 and on October 12 came to Ohio to free Dillinger
from the Lima city jail. The Lima sheriff was killed during the successful breakout.
On October 30, the gang robbed a police arsenal, acquiring weapons, ammunition,
and bulletproof vests.

The Pierpont/Dillinger gang robbed banks in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Chicago for
more than $130,000, a great fortune in the Depression era, and eluded the police
in several close encounters. In January 1934, the gang headed to Tucson, Arizona,
to lay low. By this time, four police officers had been killed and two wounded, and
the Chicago police had established an elite squad to track down the fugitives. They
were recognized in Tucson and on January 25 captured without bloodshed.

Dillinger was extradited to Indiana, arraigned for his January 15 murder of Indiana
police officer William Patrick O’Malley, and held at Crown Point prison. On March 3,
while still awaiting trial, he executed his most celebrated escape. That morning, he
brandished a gun and methodically began locking up the prison officials. The legend
is that the weapon was a wooden gun carved by Dillinger and blackened with shoe
polish, but it may also have been a real gun smuggled into the prison by an associate.
Whatever the case, Dillinger raided the prison arsenal, where he found two sub-machine
guns, and then enlisted the aid of another prisoner, an African American man named
Herbert Youngblood. Dillinger and Youngblood then made their way to the prison garage,
where they stole a sheriff’s car and calmly drove off–after pulling the ignition wires from
the other vehicles parked there.

Parting ways with Youngblood, Dillinger traveled to Chicago and formed a new gang
featuring “Baby Face” Nelson, a psychopathic killer who used to work for Al Capone.
The new Dillinger gang robbed banks in South Dakota and Iowa, netting $101,500 and
wounding two more police officers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) joined
the manhunt for Dillinger after he escaped from Crown Point, and on March 31 two
FBI agents closed in on him at an apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dillinger and an
accomplice shot their way out.

In April, the Dillinger gang went to hide out at a resort in Wisconsin, but the FBI was
tipped off. On April 22, the FBI stormed the resort. In a disastrous operation, three
civilians were mistakenly shot by the FBI, one of whom died; Baby Face Nelson killed
one agent, shot another, and critically wounded a police officer;
the entire Dillinger gang escaped.

With two other gang members, Dillinger traveled to Chicago, surviving a shoot-out
with Minnesota police along the way. In Chicago, he lived in a safe house and got a
facelift to conceal his identity. At some point, he also used acid to burn off his fingerprints.
On June 30, he participated in his last robbery, in South Bend, Indiana. The gang got
away with about $30,000 at the cost of one officer killed, four civilians shot,
and one gang member shot.

In July, Anna Sage, a Romanian-born brothel madam in Chicago and friend of Dillinger’s,
agreed to cooperate with the FBI in exchange for leniency in an upcoming deportation
hearing. She also hoped to cash in on the $10,000 bounty that had been put on his head.
On July 22, Sage and Dillinger went to see the gangster movie Manhattan Melodrama at
the Biograph Theatre around the corner from her house. Twenty FBI agents and police
officers staked out the theater and waited for him to emerge with Sage, who would be
wearing an orange dress to identify herself.

At 10:40 p.m., Dillinger came out. Sage’s orange dress looked red under the Biograph’s
lights, which would earn her the nickname “the lady in red.” Dillinger was ordered to
surrender, but he took off running. He made it as far as an alley at the end of the block
before he was gunned down, allegedly because he pulled a gun. Two bystanders were
wounded in the gunfire. Public Enemy No. 1,
as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had deemed him, was dead.

Some researchers have claimed that another man, not Dillinger, was killed outside the
Biograph, citing autopsy findings on the corpse that allegedly contradict Dillinger’s known
medical record.




ALSO ON THIS DAY



GREAT BRITAIN
2013
Prince George,
first child of Prince William and Kate Middleton,
is born

Weighing in at a healthy 8 pounds, 6 ounces, the first child
of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (more informally
known as Prince William and Kate Middleton), is born on
July 22, 2013, at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, England.
The new prince’s birth had been a highly ...
read more





COLD WAR
1987
Gorbachev accepts ban on
intermediate-range nuclear missiles

In a dramatic turnaround, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
indicates that he is willing to negotiate a ban on
intermediate-range nuclear missiles without conditions.
Gorbachev’s decision paved the way for the groundbreaking
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the ...
read more


WORLD WAR II
1942
Deportations from Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka begin

On July 22, 1942, the systematic deportation of Jewish people
from the Warsaw ghetto begins, as thousands are rounded up
daily and transported to a newly constructed
concentration/extermination camp at Treblinka, in Poland.
On July 17, Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi SS, ...
read more


EXPLORATION
1933
Wiley Post flies solo around the world

American aviator Wiley Post returns to Floyd Bennett Field
in New York, having flown solo around the world in
7 days, 18 hours, and 49 minutes. He was the first aviator
to accomplish the feat. Post, instantly recognizable by the
patch he wore over one eye, began the journey on ...
read more




21ST CENTURY
2003
Jessica Lynch gets hero's welcome

On July 22, 2003, U.S. Army Private Jessica Lynch, a
prisoner-of-war who was rescued from an Iraqi hospital,
receives a hero’s welcome when she returns to her
hometown of Palestine, West Virginia. The story of the
19-year-old supply clerk, who was captured by Iraqi forces in ...
read more





21ST CENTURY
2003
Qusay and Uday Hussein killed

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s sons, Qusay and
Uday Hussein, are killed after a three-hour firefight with
U.S. forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. It is widely
believed that the two men were even more cruel and
ruthless than their notorious father, and their death ...
read more





U.S. PRESIDENTS
1862
Lincoln tells his cabinet about
Emancipation Proclamation

On July 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln informs his
chief advisors and cabinet that he will issue a proclamation
to free enslaved people, but adds that he will wait until
the Union Army has achieved a substantial military victory
to make the announcement. Attempting to stitch ...
read more


ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
2005
"March of the Penguins" debuts

On July 22, 2005, March of the Penguins, a French-made
documentary about emperor penguins in Antarctica, opens
in theaters across the U.S. March of the Penguins went on
to win numerous awards, including an Oscar, and became
one of the highest-grossing documentaries in movie ...
read more





CRIME
1923
John Dillinger joins the Navy
in an attempt to avoid prosecution

John Herbert Dillinger joins the Navy in order to avoid charges
of auto theft in Indiana, marking the beginning of America’s
most notorious criminal’s downfall. Years later, Dillinger’s
reputation was forged in a single 12-month period, during
which he robbed more banks than ...
read more





CRIME
1991
Cannibal and serial killer
Jeffrey Dahmer is caught

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, police officers spot Tracy Edwards running
down the street in handcuffs, and upon investigation, they find
one of the grisliest scenes in modern history: Jeffrey Dahmer’s
apartment. Edwards told the police that Dahmer had held him
at his apartment and ...
read more





CIVIL WAR
1864
Battle of Atlanta continues

Confederate General John Bell Hood continues to try to drive
General William T. Sherman from the outskirts of Atlanta when
he attacks the Yankees on Bald Hill. The attack failed, and
Sherman tightened his hold on Atlanta. Confederate President
Jefferson Davis had appointed Hood ...
read more


WORLD WAR I
1916
Preparedness Day bombing in San Francisco

On July 22, 1916, a massive parade held in San Francisco, California,
to celebrate Preparedness Day, in anticipation of the United States
entrance into World War I, is disrupted by the explosion of a suitcase
bomb, which kills 10 bystanders and wounds 40 more. By the summer of ...
read more

Miss America resigns over nude photos







1984
July 23



On July 23, 1984, 21-year-old Vanessa Williams gives up her Miss America title, the first
resignation in the pageant’s history, after Penthouse magazine announces plans to publish
nude photos of the beauty queen in its September issue. Williams originally made history
on September 17, 1983, when she became the first Black woman to win the Miss America
crown. Miss New Jersey, Suzette Charles, the first runner-up and also African American,
assumed Williams’ tiara for the two months that remained of her reign.

Vanessa Lynn Williams was born March 18, 1963, in Millwood, New York, to music teacher
parents. She attended Syracuse University and studied musical theater. In 1982, while working
a summer job as a receptionist at a modeling agency in Mt. Kisco, New York, photographer
Thomas Chiapel took the nude pictures of Williams, telling her they’d be shot in silhouette and
that she wouldn’t be recognizable. After Williams became Miss America, the photographer sold
the pictures to Penthouse without her knowledge. Williams later dropped lawsuits against the
magazine and photographer after it was learned that she had signed a model release form
at the time the photos were taken.

The Miss America pageant, which prides itself on projecting a wholesome, positive image of women,
began in 1921 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, as a stunt developed by local businessmen to extend
the summer tourist season. In 1945, the Miss America Organization handed out its first scholarship.
Today, it provides over $45 million each year in cash and tuition assistance to contestants on the
national, state and local levels. In 1954, the competition was broadcast live for the first time.
Beginning in the 1980s, contestants were required to have a social platform, such as drunk-driving
prevention of HIV/AIDS awareness, and Miss America winners now travel an estimated 20,000 miles
a month for speaking engagements and public appearances. In 2006, following a decline in TV ratings,
the pageant moved from Atlantic City for the first time in its history and took place in Las Vegas,
where a new Miss America was crowned in January instead of September.


Vanessa Williams rebounded from the Miss America scandal and went on to a successful entertainment
career as an actress and recording artist, performing on Broadway as well as in movies and television
and releasing a number of albums.





ALSO ON THIS DAY



AFRICA
1952
Military seizes power in Egypt

In Egypt, the Society of Free Officers seizes control of the government
in a military coup d’etat staged by Colonel Gamal Abdal Nasser’s Free
Officers. King Farouk, whose rule had been criticized for its corruption
and failures in the first Arab-Israeli war, was forced to ...
read more

1960S
1967
Detroit Riots of 1967 begin

The 1967 Detroit Riots were among the bloodiest in American history.
The strife occurred during a period of Detroit’s history when the
once-affluent city was struggling economically, and race relations
nationwide were at an all-time low. The Detroit Police Department’s vice ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1988
Guns N’ Roses make popular breakthrough
with “Sweet Child O’ Mine”

In the 1980s, Los Angeles was a mecca for so-called “glam rock” bands
and the “sex, drugs and rock and roll” lifestyle with which they came
to be associated. On any given night inside clubs like the Troubadour
and the Whisky a Go Go, you could not only hear bands like Hanoi Rocks ...
read more





SPORTS
1996
U.S. women take home gymnastics gold

On July 23, 1996, at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia,
the U.S. women’s gymnastics team wins its first-ever team gold.
The 1996 U.S. women’s team, nicknamed the “Mag 7″ or “magnificent seven,”
was made up of seven immensely talented teenaged girls: Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, ...
read more





U.S. PRESIDENTS
1885
Former president Ulysses S. Grant dies

On July 23, 1885, just after completing his memoirs, Civil War hero
and former president Ulysses S. Grant dies of throat cancer.
The son of a tanner, Grant showed little enthusiasm for joining
his father’s business, so the elder Grant enrolled his son at West Point in 1839. ...
read more


ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1982
Actor and two children killed on "Twilight Zone" set

On July 23, 1982, Vic Morrow and two child actors, Renee Shinn Chen
and Myca Dinh Le, are killed in an accident involving a helicopter during
filming on the California set of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Morrow, age 53,
and the children, ages six and seven, were shooting a Vietnam ...
read more





CRIME
1878
Black Bart strikes again

Black Bart robs a Wells Fargo stagecoach in California. Wearing a flour
sack over his head, the armed robber stole the small safe box with
less than $400 and a passenger’s diamond ring and watch. When
the empty box was recovered, a taunting poem signed “Black Bart” was found ...
read more





CRIME
1918
A string of mysterious deaths surrounds a Nebraska woman

Della Sorenson kills the first of her seven victims in rural Nebraska by
poisoning her sister-in-law’s infant daughter, Viola Cooper. Over the
next seven years, friends, relatives, and acquaintances of Sorenson
died under mysterious circumstances before anyone finally realized ...
read more





WORLD WAR I
1914
Austria-Hungary issues ultimatum to Serbia

At six o’clock in the evening on July 23, 1914, nearly one month after the
assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by a young
Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Baron Giesl von Gieslingen,
ambassador of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Serbia, delivers ...
read more