TODAY IN HISTORY

0

Today is Wednesday, July 8, the 190th day of 2020. There are 176 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 8, 2000, Venus Williams beat Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 7-6 (3) for her first Grand Slam title, becoming the first Black female champion at Wimbledon since Althea Gibson in 1957-58.

On this date:

In 1776, Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, outside the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.

In 1889, The Wall Street Journal was first published.

In 1947, a New Mexico newspaper, the Roswell Daily Record, quoted officials at Roswell Army Air Field as saying they had recovered a “flying saucer” that crashed onto a ranch; officials then said it was actually a weather balloon. (To this day, there are those who believe what fell to Earth was an alien spaceship carrying extra-terrestrial beings.) Demolition work began in New York City to make way for the new permanent headquarters of the United Nations.

In 1950, President Harry S. Truman named Gen. Douglas MacArthur commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea. (Truman ended up sacking MacArthur for insubordination nine months later.)

In 1972, the Nixon administration announced a deal to sell $750 million in grain to the Soviet Union. (However, the Soviets were also engaged in secretly buying subsidized American grain, resulting in what critics dubbed “The Great Grain Robbery.”)

In 2011, former first lady Betty Ford died in Rancho Mirage, California, at age 93.

In 2014, President Barack Obama appealed to Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency spending to deal with the immigration crisis on the nation’s southern border, where unaccompanied children were showing up by the thousands (Republican lawmakers rejected the request). Washington became the second state to allow people to buy marijuana legally in the U.S. without a doctor’s note.

Today’s Birthdays: Singer Steve Lawrence is 85. Actor Jeffrey Tambor is 76. Rock musician Jaimoe Johanson is 75. Ballerina Cynthia Gregory is 73. Actress Kim Darby is 73. Actress Jonelle Allen is 72. Children’s performer Raffi is 72. Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck is 71. Actress Anjelica Huston is 69. Writer Anna Quindlen is 68. Actor Kevin Bacon is 62. Actor Robert Knepper is 61. Rock musician Andy Fletcher (Depeche Mode) is 59. Country singer Toby Keith is 59. Rock musician Graham Jones (Haircut 100) is 59. Rock singer Joan Osborne is 58. Writer-producer Rob Burnett is 58. Actor Rocky Carroll is 57. Actor Corey Parker is 55. Actor Lee Tergesen is 55. Actor Michael B. Silver is 53. Actor Billy Crudup is 52. Actor Michael Weatherly is 52. Singer Beck is 50.

No posts to display