THIS DAY IN HISTORY

[IceWizard]

American archeologist encounters Machu Picchu ruins







1911
July 24




On July 24, 1911, American archeologist Hiram Bingham gets his first look at the ruins of Machu Picchu,
an ancient Inca settlement in Peru that is now one of the world’s top tourist destinations.

Tucked away in the rocky countryside northwest of Cuzco, Machu Picchu is believed to have been a summer
retreat for Inca leaders, whose civilization was virtually wiped out by Spanish invaders in the 16th century.
For hundreds of years afterwards, its existence was a secret known only to the peasants living in the region.
That all changed in the summer of 1911, when Bingham arrived with a small team of explorers to search
for the famous “lost” cities of the Incas.

Traveling on foot and by mule, Bingham and his team made their way from Cuzco into the Urubamba Valley,
where a local farmer told them of some ruins located at the top of a nearby mountain. The farmer called
the mountain Machu Picchu, which meant “Old Peak” in the native Quechua language.
The next day—July 24—after a tough climb to the mountain’s ridge in cold and drizzly weather, Bingham met
a small group of peasants who showed him the rest of the way. Led by an 11-year-old boy, Bingham got
his first glimpse of the intricate network of stone terraces marking the entrance to Machu Picchu.

The excited Bingham spread the word about his discovery in a best-selling book, sending hordes of eager
tourists flocking to Peru to follow in his footsteps up the Inca trail. The site itself stretches an impressive
five miles, with over 3,000 stone steps linking its many different levels. Today, more than 300,000 people
tramp through Machu Picchu every year, braving crowds and landslides to see the sun set over the towering
stone monuments of the “Sacred City” and marvel at the mysterious splendor of one of the world’s most
famous man-made wonders.



ALSO ON THIS DAY



19TH CENTURY
1847
Religious pioneers settle Salt Lake Valley

After 17 months and many miles of travel, Brigham Young
leads 148 pioneers into Utah’s Valley of the Great Salt Lake.
Gazing over the parched earth of the remote location, Young
declared, “This is the place,” and the pioneers began preparations
for the thousands of followers of ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1982
“Eye Of The Tiger” from “Rocky III”
tops the U.S. pop charts

Whether it’s Oliver Stone setting a scene from Platoon to Adagio
for Strings by Samuel Barber,or Quentin Tarantino setting a scene
from Reservoir Dogs to “Stuck In The Middle” by Stealer’s Wheel,
filmmakers often depend upon certain passages of music to produce
specific emotional ...
read more





GREAT BRITAIN
1567
Mary Queen of Scots deposed

During her imprisonment at Lochleven Castle in Scotland, Mary Queen
of Scots is forced to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son, later
crowned King James VI of Scotland. In 1542, while just six days old,
Mary ascended to the Scottish throne upon the death of her father, King ...
read more


SPACE EXPLORATION
1969
Apollo 11 safely returns to Earth

At 12:51 EDT on July 24, 1969, Apollo 11, the U.S. spacecraft that
had taken the first astronauts to the surface of the moon, safely
returns to Earth. The American effort to send astronauts to the moon
had its origins in a famous appeal President John F. Kennedy made
to a special ...
read more





SPORTS
2005
Lance Armstrong wins seventh Tour de France

On July 24, 2005, American cyclist Lance Armstrong wins a record-setting
seventh consecutive Tour de France and retires from the sport. After
Armstrong survived testicular cancer, his rise to cycling greatness
inspired cancer patients and fans around the world and significantly ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1901
Short story writer O. Henry is released from prison

William Sydney Porter, otherwise known as O. Henry, is released from
prison on this day, after serving three years in jail for embezzlement
from a bank in Austin, Texas. To escape imprisonment, Porter had fled
the authorities and hidden in Honduras, but returned when his wife, ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1998
“Saving Private Ryan” opens in theaters

On July 24, 1998, the director Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic,
Saving Private Ryan, is released in theaters across the United States.
The film, which starred Tom Hanks and Matt Damon, was praised for
its authentic portrayal of war and was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. It ...
read more


EARLY 20TH CENTURY US
1915
Hundreds drown in Eastland disaster

On July 24, 1915, the steamer Eastland overturns in the Chicago River,
drowning between 800 and 850 of its passengers who were heading
to a picnic. The disaster was caused by serious problems with the boat’s
design, which were known but never remedied. The Eastland was owned by ...
read more





CRIME
1984
A 9-year-old’s murder puts an innocent man in jail

The body of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton is found in a wooded area of
Rosedale, Maryland, near her home. The young girl had been raped
and beaten to death with a rock. Unfortunately, Hamilton and her family
were not the only ones to suffer because of this terrible crime. After ...
read more





COLD WAR
1959
Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev have a “kitchen debate”

During the grand opening ceremony of the American National Exhibition
in Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev
engage in a heated debate about capitalism and communism in the middle
of a model kitchen set up for the fair. The so-called “kitchen ...
read more





AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1776
John Hancock scolds Major General Philip Schuyler

July 24, 1776, Congressional President John Hancock scolds Major General
Philip Schuyler. In a letter, Hancock accuses the officer of tolerating discord
among soldiers from different states under his command. Disappointed,
Hancock told Schuyler that Congress was "concerned to ...
read more


WORLD WAR II
1943
Operation Gomorrah is launched

On July 24, 1943, British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night in
Operation Gomorrah, while Americans bomb it by day in its own “Blitz Week.”
Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing
raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The ...
read more

[Kg300]

Saving Private Ryan was amazing. I was going but I vividly remember watching in awe! It’s been years, maybe I should watch it again! New perspective and all.

[IceWizard]

World’s first "test tube" baby born






1978
July 25


On July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world’s first baby to be conceived via in vitro fertilization
(IVF) is born at Oldham and District General Hospital in Manchester, England, to parents Lesley and
Peter Brown. The healthy baby was delivered shortly before midnight by caesarean section and
weighed in at five pounds, 12 ounces.

Before giving birth to Louise, Lesley Brown had suffered years of infertility due to blocked fallopian
tubes. In November 1977, she underwent the then-experimental IVF procedure. A mature egg was
removed from one of her ovaries and combined in a laboratory dish with her husband’s sperm to form
an embryo. The embryo then was implanted into her uterus a few days later. Her IVF doctors, British
gynecologist Patrick Steptoe and scientist Robert Edwards, had begun their pioneering collaboration
a decade earlier. Once the media learned of the pregnancy, the Browns faced intense public scrutiny.
Louise’s birth made headlines around the world and raised various legal and ethical questions.

The Browns had a second daughter, Natalie, several years later, also through IVF. In May 1999, Natalie
became the first IVF baby to give birth to a child of her own. The child’s conception was natural, easing
some concerns that female IVF babies would be unable to get pregnant naturally. In December 2006,
Louise Brown, the original “test tube baby,” gave birth to a boy, Cameron John Mullinder,
who also was conceived naturally.

Today, IVF is considered a mainstream medical treatment for infertility. Hundreds of thousands of children
around the world have been conceived through the procedure, in some cases with donor eggs and sperm.




ALSO ON THIS DAY



19TH CENTURY
1832
The first railroad accident

The first recorded railroad accident in U.S. history occurs
when four people are thrown off a vacant car on the Granite
Railway near Quincy, Massachusetts. The victims had been
invited to view the process of transporting large and weighty
loads of stone when a cable on a vacant ...
read more


1950S
1956
Ships collide off Nantucket

At 11:10 p.m., 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, the
Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria and the Swedish ocean
liner Stockholm collide in a heavy Atlantic fog. Fifty-one
passengers and crew were killed in the collision, which
ripped a great hole in the broad side of the Italian ...
read more





UNITED STATES
1898
U.S. forces invade Puerto Rico

During the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces launch their
invasion of Puerto Rico, the approximately 110-mile-long,
35-mile-wide island that was one of Spain’s two principal
possessions in the Caribbean. With little resistance and only
seven deaths, U.S. troops under General ...
read more


WORLD WAR II
1943
Benito Mussolini falls from power

On July 25, 1943, Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy,
is voted out of power by his own Grand Council and arrested
upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuele, who
tells Il Duce that the war is lost. Mussolini responded to it
all with an uncharacteristic meekness. ...
read more





WORLD WAR I
1917
Dancer and spy Mata Hari sentenced to die

In Paris, France, on July 25, 1917, the exotic dancer Mata Hari
is sentenced to death by a French court for spying on Germany’s
behalf during World War I. Since 1903, Margueretha Gertruida Zelle,
born in a small town in northern Holland and formerly married
to a captain in the ...
read more





SPORTS
1992
Opening of the XXV Olympiad in Barcelona

On July 25, 1992, the opening ceremonies of the Games of the
XXV Olympiad are held in Barcelona, Spain. The Barcelona
Olympics were the first ever in which professional athletes
were allowed to participate, and the first Games since 1972
in which every member nation of the ...
read more





WORLD WAR II
1945
Truman drops hint to Stalin about
a "terrible" new weapon

On July 25, 1945, President Harry S. Truman hints to Soviet
Premier Joseph Stalin that the United States has successfully
developed a new weapon. In his diary, Truman privately
referred to the new weapon, the atomic bomb, as the most
terrible bomb in the history of the world. ...
read more


WESTWARD EXPANSION
1853
California Rangers kill Joaquin Murrieta

In a macabre instance of rough frontier justice, California Rangers
claim a $6,000 award by bringing in the severed head—preserved
in whiskey—of outlaw Joaquin Murrieta. In the early months of
1853, a wild band of desperadoes began terrorizing Calaveras County
in central ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1965
Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival

Before he took the stage at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival—the
annual event that had given him his first real national exposure
one year earlier—Bob Dylan was introduced by Ronnie Gilbert,
a member of The Weavers: “And here he is…take him,
you know him, he’s yours.” In his 2004 ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1897
Jack London sails for the Klondike

Jack London leaves for the Klondike to join the gold rush,
where he will write his first successful stories. London was
born in San Francisco in 1876. His father, an astrologer
named Chaney, abandoned the family, and his mother, a
spiritualist and music teacher, remarried. Jack ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1985
Rock Hudson announces he has AIDS

On July 25, 1985, Rock Hudson, a quintessential tall, dark
and handsome Hollywood leading man of the 1950s and
1960s who made more than 60 films during his career,
announces through a press release that he is suffering from
acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). With that ...
read more




NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT
2000
Concorde jet crashes,
killing everyone onboard

An Air France Concorde jet crashes upon takeoff in Paris
on July 25, 2000, killing 109 passengers and crew onboard
as well as four people on the ground. The Concorde, the
world’s fastest commercial jet, had enjoyed an exemplary
safety record up to that point, with no crashes in ...
read more





CRIME
1988
A young man turns the death
of his parents into a game

Police responding to an emergency call in Washington,
North Carolina, find Lieth and Bonnie Von Stein stabbed
and beaten in their home. Lieth was dead, but Bonnie,
barely clinging to life, somehow survived. Angela,
Bonnie’s 18-year-old daughter, was found in the next room; she ...
read more





VIETNAM WAR
1969
The Nixon Doctrine is announced

President Richard Nixon announces that henceforth the
United States will expect its Asian allies to tend to their
own military defense. The Nixon Doctrine, as the president’s
statement came to be known, clearly indicated his
determination to “Vietnamize” the Vietnam War. When ...
read more


INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1941
Henry Ford writes fan letter
to Mahatma Gandhi

On July 25, 1941, the American automaker Henry Ford sits down
at his desk in Dearborn, Michigan and writes a letter to the Indian
nationalist leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The letter
effusively praises Gandhi and his campaign of civil disobedience
aimed at forcing the ...
read more

[IceWizard]

U.S. postal system established







1775
July 26



On July 26, 1775, the U.S. postal system is established by the Second Continental Congress,
with Benjamin Franklin as its first postmaster general. Franklin (1706-1790) put in place the
foundation for many aspects of today’s mail system.

During early colonial times in the 1600s, few American colonists needed to send mail to each
other; it was more likely that their correspondence was with letter writers in Britain. Mail deliveries
from across the Atlantic were sporadic and could take many months to arrive. There were no
post offices in the colonies, so mail was typically left at inns and taverns.

In 1753, Benjamin Franklin, who had been postmaster of Philadelphia, became one of two joint
postmasters general for the colonies. He made numerous improvements to the mail system,
including setting up new, more efficient colonial routes and cutting delivery time in half between
Philadelphia and New York by having the weekly mail wagon travel both day and night via relay
teams. Franklin also debuted the first rate chart, which standardized delivery costs based on
distance and weight.

In 1774, the British fired Franklin from his postmaster job because of his revolutionary activities.
However, the following year, he was appointed postmaster general of the United Colonies by the
Continental Congress. Franklin held the job until late in 1776, when he was sent to France as a
diplomat. He left a vastly improved mail system, with routes from Florida to Maine and regular
service between the colonies and Britain. President George Washington appointed Samuel Osgood,
a former Massachusetts congressman, as the first postmaster general of the American nation under
the new U.S. constitution in 1789. At the time, there were approximately 75 post offices in the country.

Today, the United States has over 40,000 post offices and the postal service delivers more than
200 billion pieces of mail each year to over 144 million homes and businesses in the United States,
Puerto Rico, Guam, the American Virgin Islands and American Samoa. The postal service is the
nation’s largest civilian employer, with roughly 500,000 career workers. The postal service is a
not-for-profit, self-supporting agency that covers the majority of its expenses through postage
(stamp use in the United States started in 1847) and related products. The postal service gets the
mail delivered, rain or shine, using everything from planes to mules.





ALSO ON THIS DAY



BLACK HISTORY
1948
President Truman ends discrimination in the military

President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981—ending
discrimination in the military—on July 26, 1948. Truman’s order
ended a long-standing practice of segregating Black soldiers and
relegating them to more menial jobs. African Americans had been
serving in the United ...
read more


US GOVERNMENT
1990
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) signed into law

On July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signs
the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the most
sweeping affirmation of rights for the disabled in American
history at the time, into law. As disability rights attorney
Arlene Mayerson would later write, the story of the ADA ...
read more


CRIME
1908
FBI founded

On July 26, 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is
born when U.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte orders a
group of newly hired federal investigators to report to
Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch of the Department of Justice.
One year later, the Office of the Chief ...
read more





AFRICA
1956
Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal

The Suez Crisis begins when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel
Nasser nationalizes the British and French-owned Suez Canal.
The Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas
across Egypt, was completed by French engineers in 1869.
For the next 87 years, it remained ...
read more


AFRICA
1847
Liberian independence proclaimed

The Republic of Liberia, formerly a colony of the American
Colonization Society, declares its independence. Under pressure
from Britain, the United States hesitantly accepted Liberian
sovereignty, making the West African nation the first democratic
republic in African history. A ...
read more


GREAT BRITAIN
1945
Winston Churchill resigns

In the 11th hour of World War II, Winston Churchill is forced to
resign as British prime minister following his party’s electoral defeat
by the Labour Party. It was the first general election held in Britain
in more than a decade. The same day, Clement Attlee, the Labour leader, ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1975
Van McCoy’s “The Hustle” is the #1 song in America

For as popular as it was during much of the first half of the 20th century,
couples dancing seemed poised to go by the wayside of American popular
culture by the early 1970s. That is, until the arrival of a dance called the
Hustle along with a #1 song by the same name. On July ...
read more





WORLD WAR II
1941
United States freezes Japanese assets

On July 26, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt seizes all Japanese
assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation
of French Indo-China. On July 24, Tokyo decided to strengthen its
position in terms of its invasion of China by moving through Southeast Asia. ...
read more


ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1943
Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger is born

The musician, actor, film producer and Rolling Stones front man
Mick Jagger is born in Dartford, Kent, England on July 26, 1943. 
Raised in a middle-class English family, Michael Philip Jagger
attended the London School of Economics but left without
graduating in order to pursue ...
read more





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT
1931
Grasshoppers devastate Midwestern crops

On July 26, 1931, a swarm of grasshoppers descends on crops
throughout the American heartland, devastating millions of acres.
Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, already in the midst of a bad
drought, suffered tremendously from this disaster.
Since the very beginning of ...
read more





CRIME
1984
Infamous serial killer Ed Gein dies

On July 26, 1984, Ed Gein, a serial killer infamous for skinning
human corpses, dies of complications from cancer in a Wisconsin
prison at age 77. Gein served as the inspiration for writer
Robert Bloch’s character Norman Bates in the 1959 novel “Psycho,”
which in 1960 was turned ...
read more





COLD WAR
1947
President Truman signs the National Security Act

President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act, which
becomes one of the most important pieces of Cold War legislation.
The act established much of the bureaucratic framework for foreign
policymaking for the next 40-plus years of the Cold War.
By July 1947, the Cold ...
read more


CIVIL WAR
1863
Confederate leader John Hunt Morgan is captured

On July 26, 1863, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and
360 of his men are captured at Salineville, Ohio, during a spectacular
raid on the North. Starting in July 1862, Morgan made four major
raids on Northern or Northern-held territory over the course of a year. ...
read more




INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1998
Three race fans killed at Michigan Speedway

The U.S. 500, the most prestigious race in the Championship Auto
Racing Teams (CART) series, dissolves into tragedy on July 26, 1998,
when three fans are killed and six others wounded by flying debris
from a car at Michigan Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. CART
(later known as ...
read more

[IceWizard]

Bombing at Centennial Olympic Park





1996
July 27



In Atlanta, Georgia, the XXVI Summer Olympiad is disrupted by the explosion of a nail-laden
pipe bomb in Centennial Olympic Park. The bombing, which occurred during a free concert, killed
a mother who had brought her daughter to hear the rock music and injured more than 100 others,
including a Turkish cameraman who suffered a fatal heart attack after the blast. Police were warned
of the bombing in advance, but the bomb exploded before the anonymous caller said it would,
leading authorities to suspect that the law enforcement officers who descended on the park were
indirectly targeted. Within a few days, Richard Jewell, a security guard at the concert, was under
investigation for the crime. However, evidence against him was dubious at best, and in October he
was fully cleared of all responsibility in the bombing.

On January 16, 1997, another bomb exploded outside an abortion clinic in suburban Atlanta, blowing
a hole in the building’s wall. An hour later, while police and ambulance workers were still at the scene,
a second blast went off near a large trash bin, injuring seven people. As at Centennial Park, a nail-laden
bomb was used and authorities were targeted. Then, only five days later, also in Atlanta, a nail-laden
bomb exploded near the patio area of a crowded gay and lesbian nightclub, injuring five people. A second
bomb in a backpack was found outside after the first explosion, but police safely detonated it. Federal
investigators linked the bombings, but no suspect was arrested.



On January 29, 1998, an abortion clinic was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, killing an off-duty police
officer and critically wounding a nurse. An automobile reported at the crime scene was later found
abandoned near the Georgia state line, and investigators traced it to Eric Robert Rudolph, a 31-year-old
carpenter. Although Rudolph was not immediately found, authorities positively identified him as the culprit
in the Birmingham and Atlanta bombings, and an extensive manhunt began.

Despite being one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives, Rudolph eluded the authorities for five years by hiding
in the mountains in western North Carolina before finally being captured on May 31, 2003. As part of a plea
agreement that helped him avoid a death sentence, Rudolph pled guilty to all three bombings, as well as
the 1998 murder of a police officer, and was sentenced on July 18, 2005 to four consecutive life terms.




ALSO ON THIS DAY



INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1949
First commercial jet makes test flight

On July 27, 1949, the world’s first jet-propelled airliner, the British
De Havilland Comet, makes its maiden test-flight in England. The
jet engine would ultimately revolutionize the airline industry,
shrinking air travel time in half by enabling planes to climb faster and fly ...
read more





FRANCE
1794
Robespierre overthrown in France

Maximilien Robespierre, the architect of the French Revolution’s
Reign of Terror, is overthrown and arrested by the National Convention.
As the leading member of the Committee of Public Safety from 1793,
Robespierre encouraged the execution, mostly by guillotine, of more than ...
read more


INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1921
Scientists successfully isolate insulin

At the University of Toronto, Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and
Charles Best successfully isolate insulin—a hormone they believe could
prevent diabetes—for the first time. Within a year, the first human
sufferers of diabetes were receiving insulin treatments, and ...
read more





US GOVERNMENT
1974
House begins impeachment of Nixon

On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee recommends that
America’s 37th president, Richard M. Nixon, be impeached and removed
from office. The impeachment proceedings resulted from a series of
political scandals involving the Nixon administration that came to be ...
read more





CRIME
1981
Six-year-old Adam Walsh is abducted

Adam John Walsh, age 6, is abducted from a mall in Hollywood, Florida,
and later found murdered. In the aftermath of the crime, Adam’s father,
John Walsh, became a leading victims’ rights activist and host of the
long-running television show America’s Most Wanted. Early in the ...
read more





COLD WAR
1953
Armistice ends Korean War hostilities

After three years of a bloody and frustrating war, the United States,
the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea agree
to an armistice, bringing the fighting of the Korean War to an end.
The armistice ended America’s first experiment with the Cold War concept of ...
read more

[IceWizard]

Plane crashes into Empire State Building





1945
July 28



A United States military plane crashes into the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945, killing 14 people.
The freak accident was caused by heavy fog.

The B-25 Mitchell bomber, with two pilots and one passenger aboard, was flying from New Bedford,
Massachusetts, to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. As it came into the metropolitan area on that
Saturday morning, the fog was particularly thick. Air-traffic controllers instructed the plane to fly to
Newark Airport instead.

This new flight plan took the plane over Manhattan; the crew was specifically warned that the
Empire State Building, the tallest building in the city at the time, was not visible. The bomber was flying
relatively slowly and quite low, seeking better visibility, when it came upon the Chrysler Building in midtown.
It swerved to avoid the building but the move sent it straight into the north side of the Empire State Building,
near the 79th floor.

Upon impact, the plane’s fuel exploded, filling the interior of the building with flames all the way down to
the 75th floor and sending flames out of the hole the plane had ripped open in the building’s side. One engine
from the plane went straight through the building and landed in a penthouse apartment across the street.
Other plane parts ended up embedded in and on top of nearby buildings. The other engine snapped an
elevator cable while at least one woman was riding in the elevator car. The emergency auto brake saved the
woman from crashing to the bottom, but the engine fell down the shaft and landed on top of it. Quick-thinking
rescuers pulled the woman from the elevator, saving her life.

Since it was a Saturday, fewer workers than normal were in the building. Only 11 people in the building were
killed, some suffering burns from the fiery fuel and others after being thrown out of the building. All 11 victims
were workers from War Relief Services department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, into the offices
of which the plane had crashed. The three people on the plane were also killed.

An 18 foot by 20 foot hole was left in the side of the Empire State Building. Though its structural integrity was
not affected, the crash did cause nearly $1 million in damages, about $10.5 million in today’s money.



ALSO ON THIS DAY



WOMEN’S HISTORY
2016
Hillary Clinton accepts Democratic nomination for president,
becoming first woman to lead a major U.S. political party

95 years after women were first granted the right to vote,
on July 28, 2016, former Secretary of State, Senator and
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton makes history by accepting
the Democratic Party's nomination for president,
becoming the first woman to lead a major U.S. ...
read more





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT
1976
One of the worst earthquakes in
modern history destroys Chinese city

At 3:42 a.m., an earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2
magnitude on the Richter scale flattens Tangshan, a Chinese
industrial city with a population of about one million people.
As almost everyone was asleep in their beds, instead of outside
in the relative safety of the ...
read more





GREAT DEPRESSION
1932
Bonus Marchers evicted by U.S. Army

During the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover orders
the U.S. Army under General Douglas MacArthur to evict by
force the Bonus Marchers from the nation’s capital. Two months
before, the so-called “Bonus Expeditionary Force,” a group of
some 1,000 World War I veterans ...
read more


UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
1868
14th Amendment adopted

Following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states,
the 14th Amendment, granting citizenship to all persons born or
naturalized in the United States—including formerly enslaved people—is
officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Secretary of State ...
read more


VIETNAM WAR
1965
President Johnson announces more troops to Vietnam

President Lyndon B. Johnson announces that he has ordered an increase
in U.S. military forces in Vietnam, from the present 75,000 to 125,000.
Johnson also said that he would order additional increases if necessary.
He pointed out that to fill the increase in military manpower ...
read more


U.S. PRESIDENTS
1929
Future first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy is born

On July 28, 1929, President John F. Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline
Bouvier Kennedy, is born into a prominent New York family.
Jacqueline, or “Jackie” as she was called, grew up an avid
horsewoman and reader. In 1951, after graduating from
George Washington University, Jackie toured ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1978
"Animal House" released in theaters

On July 28, 1978, National Lampoon’s Animal House, a movie spoof
about 1960s college fraternities starring John Belushi, opens in U.S.
theaters. Produced with an estimated budget of $3 million, Animal House
became a huge, multi-million-dollar box-office hit, spawned a slew of ...
read more





WORLD WAR II
1943
Stalin issues Order No. 227—outlawing cowards

On July 28, 1942, Joseph Stalin, premier and dictator of the Soviet Union,
issues Order No. 227, what came to be known as the “Not one step
backward” order, in light of German advances into Russian territory.
The order declared, “Panic makers and cowards must be liquidated on the ...
read more





WORLD WAR I
1914
Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia

On July 28, 1914, one month to the day after Archduke Franz Ferdinand
of Austria and his wife were killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo,
Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, effectively beginning the First
World War. Threatened by Serbian ambition in the tumultuous ...
read more

[IceWizard]

NASA created





1958
July 29


The U.S. Congress passes legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),
a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America’s activities in space, on July 29, 1958. NASA has since
sponsored space expeditions, both human and mechanical, that have yielded vital information about the solar
system and universe. It has also launched numerous earth-orbiting satellites that have been instrumental in
everything from weather forecasting to navigation to global communications.

NASA was created in response to the Soviet Union’s October 4, 1957 launch of its first satellite, Sputnik I. The
183-pound, basketball-sized satellite orbited the earth in 98 minutes. The Sputnik launch caught Americans by
surprise and sparked fears that the Soviets might also be capable of sending missiles with nuclear weapons from
Europe to America. The United States prided itself on being at the forefront of technology, and, embarrassed,
immediately began developing a response, signaling the start of the U.S.-Soviet space race.

On November 3, 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik II, which carried a dog named Laika. In December, America
attempted to launch a satellite of its own, called Vanguard, but it exploded shortly after takeoff. On January 31, 1958,
things went better with Explorer I, the first U.S. satellite to successfully orbit the earth. In July of that year, Congress
passed legislation officially establishing NASA from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and other
government agencies, and confirming the country’s commitment to winning the space race. In May 1961,
President John F. Kennedy declared that America should put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. On July 20, 1969,
NASA’s Apollo 11 mission achieved that goal and made history when astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person
to set foot on the moon, famously declaring “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

NASA has continued to make great advances in space exploration since the first moonwalk, including playing a major
part in the construction of the International Space Station. The agency has also suffered tragic setbacks, however, such
as the disasters that killed the crews of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986 and the Columbia space shuttle in 2003.





ALSO ON THIS DAY



WORLD WAR II
1921
Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party

On July 29, 1921, Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the
National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. Under Hitler,
the Nazi Party grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany
as a totalitarian state from 1933 to 1945. Hitler’s early years
did not seem to predict his rise as a ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1967
The Doors score their first #1
hit with “Light My Fire”

By the beginning of 1967, The Doors were well-established
members of the Los Angeles music scene. As the house band
at the Whiskey a Go Go on the Sunset Strip, they had built a
large local following and strong industry buzz, and out on the
road, they were fast becoming known as a ...
read more





EXPLORATION
1588
Spanish Armada defeated

Off the coast of Gravelines, France, Spain’s so-called
“Invincible Armada” is defeated by an English naval force
under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake.
After eight hours of furious fighting, a change in wind direction
prompted the Spanish to break off ...
read more


GREAT BRITAIN
1981
Prince Charles marries Lady Diana

Nearly one billion television viewers in 74 countries tune in to
witness the marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne,
to Lady Diana Spencer, a young English schoolteacher. Married
in a grand ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in the presence of
2,650 guests, the ...
read more





CRIME
1900
Italian American assassinates Italian king

In Monza, Italy, King Umberto I is shot to death by Gaetano Bresci,
an Italian-born anarchist who resided in America before returning
to his homeland to murder the king. Crowned in 1878, King Umberto
became increasingly authoritarian in the late 19th century.
He enacted a program ...
read more


INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1909
General Motors buys Cadillac

On July 29, 1909, the newly formed General Motors Corporation (GM)
acquires the country’s leading luxury automaker, the Cadillac Automobile
Company, for $4.5 million. Cadillac was founded out of the ruins of
automotive pioneer Henry Ford’s second failed company (his third ...
read more


WORLD WAR I
1914
Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Czar Nicholas of Russia
exchange telegrams

In the early hours of July 29, 1914, Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his
first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, begin a frantic exchange of
telegrams regarding the newly erupted war in the Balkan region and
the possibility of its escalation into a general European war. One ...
read more


VIETNAM WAR
1965
101st Airborne Division arrives in Vietnam

The first 4,000 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division arrive in
Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay. They made a demonstration jump
immediately after arriving, observed by Gen. William Westmoreland
and outgoing Ambassador (formerly General) Maxwell Taylor. Taylor and ...
read more


SPORTS
1996
Carl Lewis wins fourth consecutive long jump at 35

On July 29, 1996, track and field legend Carl Lewis wins his fourth
consecutive Olympic gold medal in the long jump. It was the ninth
and final Olympic gold of his storied career. Frederick Carlton Lewis
was born July 11, 1961, in Birmingham, Alabama,
and raised in a middle-class ...
read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
2000
Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston wed

On July 29, 2000, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, one of Hollywood’s
highest-profile couples, marry at the Malibu, California, estate of the
producer Marcy Carsey (The Cosby Show). The two actors reportedly
met on a blind date in 1998 and quickly became favorites of the tabloid ...
read more





VIETNAM WAR
1967
Rocket causes deadly fire on aircraft carrier

A fire on a United States Navy carrier stationed off the coast of
Vietnam kills 134 service members on July 29, 1967. The deadly
fire on the USS Forrestal began with the accidental launch of a rocket.
During the Vietnam War, the USS Forrestal was often stationed off the coast ...
read more





CRIME
1976
Son of Sam terrorizes New York

The so-called “Son of Sam” pulls a gun from a paper bag and fires five
shots at Donna Lauria and Jody Valenti of the Bronx while they are sitting
in a car, talking. Lauria died and Valenti was seriously wounded in the
first in a series of shootings by the serial killer, who ...
read more





CIVIL WAR
1862
Confederate spy Belle Boyd is captured

Confederate spy Marie Isabella “Belle” Boyd is arrested by Union troops
and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. It was the
first of three arrests for this skilled spy who provided crucial information
to the Confederates during the war. The Virginian-born Boyd ...
read more

[IceWizard]

The Troggs take their signature hit,
“Wild Thing,” to #1





1966
July 30




If there is one song that has been played more times by more bands in more garages than
any ever written, it is probably “Louie Louie,” The Kingsmen’s classic 1966 hit. But if any
other song warrants a place in the conversation, it would be “Wild Thing,” the three-chord
masterpiece that became a #1 hit for The Troggs on July 30, 1966 and instantly took its
rightful place in the rock-and-roll canon.

“Wild Thing” was written in 1965 by a New York songwriter named Chip Taylor
(born James Voight, brother of the actor Jon Voight and uncle of actress Angelina Jolie).
After an unsuccessful version of the song was recorded and released by a group called
The Wild Ones, Taylor’s demo made its way to England, where Reg Presley (born Reginald Ball),
lead singer of The Troggs, fell in love with it. Like Taylor himself, who never took his biggest
hit very seriously, Presley initially found “Wild Thing” to be a ridiculous trifle, but that didn’t
stop him from having his then-hitless band take it into the studio. In a single take of “Wild Thing,”
The Troggs captured a raw and thrilling sound that not only gave them a #1 hit, but also served
as a formative influence on some of the key figures in the development of punk rock, including
Iggy Pop, the Ramones and the Buzzcocks, all of whom credited The Troggs as forerunners.


There were other hits for The Troggs, including “With A Girl Like You” (1966) and
“Love Is All Around” (1967)—but nothing to match “Wild Thing” in terms of success or influence.
In fact, the most influential recording they made after 1968 was not of a song at all, but of an intra-band
argument during a troubled 1972 recording session that was bootlegged out of the studio and passed
around as “The Troggs Tapes.”  On it, various Troggs can be heard bickering and cursing
(137 times in 10+ minutes) in accents and language that served as the direct inspiration for
This Is Spinal Tap, Rob Reiner’s 1984 seminal “mockumentary.”

“Wild Thing” was memorably performed by Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, complete
with burning guitar, and it was covered with some success by the L.A. punk band X in 1989, but it’s
the Troggs’ version that has become a staple of movie and television soundtracks. With royalties earned
from his band’s signature hit, Trogg frontman Reg Presley emerged as one of the world’s foremost
experts on and largest sources of funding of research into the mysterious phenomenon of crop circles.
He died in 2013.





ALSO ON THIS DAY



WORLD WAR II
1945
USS Indianapolis torpedoed

On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis is torpedoed by a
Japanese submarine and sinks within minutes in shark-infested
waters. Only 316 of the 1,196 men on board survived.
However, the Indianapolis had already completed its major mission:
the delivery of key components of the ...
read more





U.S. PRESIDENTS
1974
Watergate affair approaches climax

Under coercion from the U.S. Supreme Court, President
Richard M. Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings—suspected
to prove his guilt in the Watergate scandal—to special prosecutor
Leon Jaworski. The same day, the House Judiciary Committee voted
a third article of ...
read more


US GOVERNMENT
1619
First legislative assembly in America
convenes in Jamestown

In Jamestown, Virginia, the first elected legislative assembly in
the New World—the House of Burgesses—convenes in the choir
of the town’s church. Earlier that year, the London Company,
which had established the Jamestown settlement 12 years before,
directed Virginia Governor Sir ...
read more


U.S. PRESIDENTS
1965
President Johnson signs Medicare into law

On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs Medicare,
a health insurance program for elderly Americans, into law. At
the bill-signing ceremony, which took place at the Truman Library
in Independence, Missouri, former President Harry Truman was
enrolled as Medicare’s first ...
read more





WORLD WAR II
1943
Hitler gets news of Italy’s imminent defection

On July 30, 1943, Adolf Hitler learns that Axis ally Italy is buying time
before negotiating surrender terms with the Allies in light of Mussolini’s
fall from power. Hitler had feared that such a turn of events was possible,
if not probable. Hitler had come to Italy on July 19 to ...
read more


SPORTS
1976
Bruce Jenner wins Olympic decathlon

On July 30, 1976, American Caitlyn Jenner—who was competing as
Bruce Jenner—wins gold in the men's decathlon at the Montreal
Olympics. Jenner's 8,617 points set a world record in the event.
The secret to Jenner’s success was preparation. In the 1970s,
most decathletes trained ...
read more





U.S. PRESIDENTS
1956
President Eisenhower signs
“In God We Trust” into law

On July 30, 1956, two years after pushing to have the phrase “under God”
inserted into the pledge of allegiance, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
signs a law officially declaring “In God We Trust” to be the nation’s official
motto. The law, P.L. 84-140, also mandated that the ...
read more


ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1999
"The Blair Witch Project" released in theaters

On July 30, 1999, The Blair Witch Project, a low-budget,
independent horror film that will become a massive cult
hit, is released in U.S. theaters. Shot with shaky, handheld
cameras, the documentary-style movie told the story of
three student filmmakers who disappeared into the ...
read more





1970S
1971
Fighter jet collides with passenger plane

A mid-air collision between a Boeing 727 and a fighter jet
in Japan kills 162 people on July 30, 1971. The military
plane was flying without radar. All Nippon Airways Flight 58
was traveling from Chitose Airport in Hokkaido to Tokyo,
filled largely with members of a group ...
read more


CRIME
1994
Man charged in murder of Megan Kanka

Jesse Timmendequas is charged with the murder of
seven-year-old Megan Kanka in New Jersey. Kanka’s death
inspired Megan’s Law, a statute enacted in 1994 requiring
that information about convicted sex felons be available to
the public. Versions of Megan’s Law have been passed in ...
read more





CIVIL WAR
1864
Union forces stopped at the Battle of the Crater

On July 30, 1864, at the Battle of the Crater, the Union’s
ingenious attempt to break the Confederate lines at
Petersburg, Virginia, by blowing up a tunnel that had been
dug under the Rebel trenches fails. Although the explosion
created a gap in the Confederate defenses, a poorly ...
read more


INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
2003
Last classic VW Beetle rolls off the line

On July 30, 2003, the last of 21,529,464 Volkswagen Beetles
built since World War II rolls off the production line at Volkswagen’s
plant in Puebla, Mexico. One of a 3,000-unit final edition, the
baby-blue vehicle was sent to a museum in Wolfsburg, Germany,
where Volkswagen is ...
read more

[Kg300]

I remember some of these. The Blair witch! I was young and it freaked me out when everyone said it was real!!! Watch in terror lol!!

[IceWizard]

Labor leader Jimmy Hoffa
is reported missing





1975
July 31


On the morning of July 31, 1975, James Riddle Hoffa, one of the most influential American labor
leaders of the 20th century, is officially reported missing after he failed to return home the previous
night. Though he is popularly believed to have been the victim of a Mafia hit, conclusive evidence
was never found and Hoffa’s fate remains a mystery.

Born in 1913 to a poor coal miner in Brazil, Indiana, Jimmy Hoffa proved a natural leader in his youth.
At the age of 20, he helped organize a labor strike in Detroit, and remained an advocate for downtrodden
workers for the rest of his life. Hoffa’s charisma and talents as a local organizer quickly got him noticed
by the Teamsters and carried him upward through its ranks. Then a small but rapidly growing union,
the Teamsters organized truckers across the country, and through the use of strikes, boycotts and
some more powerful though less legal methods of protest, won contract demands on behalf of workers.

Hoffa became president of the Teamsters in 1957, when its former leader was imprisoned for bribery.
As chief, Hoffa was lauded for his tireless work to expand the union, and for his unflagging devotion
to even the organization’s least powerful members. His caring and approachability were captured in
one of the more well-known quotes attributed to him:
“You got a problem? Call me. Just pick up the phone.”

Hoffa’s dedication to the worker and his electrifying public speeches made him wildly popular, both
among his fellow workers and the politicians and businessmen with whom he negotiated. Yet, for all
the battles he fought and won on behalf of American drivers, he also had a dark side. In Hoffa’s time,
many Teamster leaders partnered with the Mafia in racketeering, extortion and embezzlement. Hoffa
himself had relationships with high-ranking mobsters, and was the target of several government
investigations throughout the 1960s. In 1967, he was convicted of bribery and
sentenced to 13 years in prison.

While in jail, Hoffa never ceded his office, and when Richard Nixon commuted his sentence in 1971,
he was poised to make a comeback. Released on condition of not participating in union activities for
10 years, Hoffa was planning to fight the restriction in court when he disappeared on the afternoon
of July 30, 1975, from the parking lot of a restaurant in Detroit, not far from where he got his start
as a labor organizer. His family filed a missing persons report to the Bloomfield Township police the
next day. Several conspiracy theories have been floated about Hoffa’s disappearance and the location
of his remains, but the truth remains unknown.





ALSO ON THIS DAY



SPACE EXPLORATION
1964
Ranger 7 photographs moon

Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, takes the first close-up
images of the moon—4,308 in total—before it impacts with the
lunar surface northwest of the Sea of Clouds. The images were
1,000 times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound
telescopes. The National ...
read more





RELIGION
1556
Ignatius of Loyola,
founder of the Jesuit order, dies

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order of Roman Catholic
missionaries and educators, dies in Rome. The Society of Jesus,
as the Jesuit order is formally known, played an important role
in the Counter-Reformation and eventually succeeded in
converting millions around the ...
read more





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT
1715
Hurricane sinks Spanish treasure ships

A hurricane strikes the east coast of Florida, sinking 10 Spanish
treasure ships and killing nearly 1,000 people, on July 31, 1715.
All of the gold and silver onboard at the time would not be
recovered until 250 years later. From 1701, Spain sent fleets
of ships to the ...
read more


AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1777
Marquis de Lafayette becomes
a major-general without pay

On July 31, 1777, a 19-year-old French aristocrat,
Marie-Joseph Paul Roch Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette,
accepts a commission as a major-general in the Continental
Army—without pay. During his service as the Continental Congress’
secret envoy to France, Silas Deane ...
read more





WORLD WAR I
1917
Third Battle of Ypres begins in Flanders

On July 31, 1917, the Allies launch a renewed assault on
German lines in the Flanders region of Belgium, in the
much-contested region near Ypres, during World War I.
The attack begins more than three months of brutal fighting,
known as the Third Battle of Ypres. While the first ...
read more


WORLD WAR II
1941
Preparations for the Final Solution begin

On July 31, 1941, Hermann Göring, writing under instructions
from Hitler, ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and
Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, “to submit to me as
soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material
and financial measures necessary for carrying ...
read more