I Eat Gravel

1864 – American Civil War: Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C..

1901 – The Socialist Party of America is founded.

1921 – Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party.

1932 – Great Depression: in Washington, D.C., troops disperse the last of the “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans.

1948 – Olympic Games: The Games of the XIV Olympiad – after a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, open in London.

1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.

1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

1959 – First United States Congress elections in Hawaii as a state of the Union.

1967 – Vietnam War: off the coast of North Vietnam the USS Forrestal catches on fire in the worst U.S. naval disaster since World War II, killing 134.

1976 – In New York City, David Berkowitz (aka the “Son of Sam”) kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks.

1987 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand sign the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel (Eurotunnel).

1993 – The Israeli Supreme Court acquits alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges and he is set free.

1996 – The child protection portion of the Communications Decency Act is struck down by a U.S. federal court as too broad .

2005 – Astronomers announce their discovery of the dwarf planet Eris.

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Born on July 29:
1883 – Benito Mussolini, Italian fascist dictator (d. 1945)
1938 – Peter Jennings, Canadian-born American journalist (d. 2005)
1953 – Geddy Lee, Canadian bassist and singer (Rush)
1972 – Wil Wheaton, American actor

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Today in Alaskan history:
1968 While a Dutch clairvoyant and a Kenai dowser were looking 100 miles in the wrong direction, bush pilot Mort Clement found a lost plane near Simpson Pass, earning a $3000 reward.

1609 – Bermuda is first settled by survivors of the English ship Sea Venture en route to Virginia.

1868 – The 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is passed, establishing African-American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law.

1896 – The city of Miami, Florida is incorporated.

1932 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C.

1942 – World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into the Soviet Union. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without
orders to do so were to be immediately executed.

1945 – A U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26.

1965 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.

1996 – The remains of a prehistoric man are discovered near Kennewick, Washington. Such remains will be known as the Kennewick Man.

2005 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army calls an end to its thirty year long armed campaign in Northern Ireland.

Born on July 28:
1746 – Thomas Heyward, Jr., American patriot, signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1809)
1866 – Beatrix Potter, English author (d. 1943)
1929 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady of the United States (d. 1994)
1945 – Jim Davis, American cartoonist (Garfield)
1954 – Hugo Chávez, 52nd President of Venezuela

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Today in Alaskan history:
1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill to provide protection for Ketchikan’s water supply by setting aside an 8,600 acre water supply reserve near the city.

1949 The Canadian Department of National Revenue established a cash deposit requirement of $342 for any Alaska Highway traveller using a car built before 1940. This was to eliminate abandonment of old cars along the highway.

1977 At 11:02 p.m., the first oil from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields reached Valdez, after travelling the 798 miles of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

1758 – French and Indian War: the Siege of Louisbourg ends with British forces defeating the French and taking control of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

1775 – The office that would later become the United States Post Office Department is established by the Second Continental Congress.

1788 – New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States.

1847 – Liberia declares independence.

1861 – American Civil War: George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run.

1863 – American Civil War: Morgan’s Raid ends – At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers are captured by Union forces.

1878 – In California, the poet and American West outlaw calling himself “Black Bart” makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box will be found later with a
taunting poem inside.

1891 – France annexes Tahiti.

1908 – United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation).

1941 – World War II: in response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.

1944 – The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain.

1945 – The Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election of July 5 by a landslide, removing Winston Churchill from power.

1945 – The US Navy cruiser USS Indianapolis arrives at Tinian with parts of the warhead for the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

1947 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
the United States National Security Council.

1948 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military of the United States.

1953 – Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.

1963 – Syncom 2, the world’s first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.

1990 – The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is signed into law by President George H. W. Bush.

2005 – Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission – Launch of Discovery, NASA’s first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003.

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Born on July 26:
1739 – George Clinton, 4th Vice President of the USA (d. 1812)
1856 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, Nobel Laureate (d. 1950)
1929 – Joe Jackson, American manager, boxer and talent scout, the patriarch of the Jackson family
1943 – Mick Jagger, English singer (The Rolling Stones)
1956 – Dorothy Hamill, American figure skater
1959 – Kevin Spacey, American actor
1964 – Sandra Bullock, American actress

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Today in Alaskan history:
1969 Alaska Highway #1 was designated the Bluestar Memorial Highway by Governor Keith Miller.

1587 – Colony of Roanoke: a second group of English settlers arrives on Roanoke Island off North Carolina to re-establish the deserted colony.

1793 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean becoming the first Euro-American to complete a transcontinental crossing of Canada.

1894 – The first ever motorized racing event is held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen. The race is won by Comte Jules-Albert de Dion.

1916 – In San Francisco, California, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade killing 10 and injuring 40.

1933 – Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly solo around the world traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.

1934 – Outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater, “Public Enemy No. 1″ John Dillinger is mortally wounded by FBI agents.

1937 – New Deal: the United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.

1942 – The United States government begins compulsory civilian gasoline rationing due to the wartime demands.

1942 – Holocaust: the systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins.

1951 – Dezik (Дезик) and Tsygan (Цыган, “Gypsy”) are the first dogs to make a sub-orbital flight.

1962 – Mariner program: Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed.

1992 – Near Medellín, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escapes from his luxury prison fearing extradition to the United States.

2003 – Members of 101st Airborne of the United States, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay’s 14-year old son, and a bodyguard.

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Born on July 22:
1890 – Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, American Kennedy family matriarch (d. 1995)
1923 – Bob Dole, American politician
1941 – George Clinton, American singer, songwriter and bandleader (Parliament, Funkadelic)
1946 – Danny Glover, American actor
1955 – Willem Dafoe, American actor
1964 – David Spade, American actor and comedian

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Today in Alaskan history:
1902 Felix Pedro discovered gold on Cleary Creek, touching off a stampede that resulted in the founding of Fairbanks.

1923 President Warren G. Harding spent the day in Sitka, the last stop of his Alaska tour.

1968 The native village of Tyonek offered to sell electric power to the city of Kenai to help them with their electricity shortage.

356 BC – Herostratus sets fire to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

365 – A tsunami devastates the city of Alexandria, Egypt. The tsunami is caused by an earthquake estimated to be 8.0 on the Richter Scale. 5,000 people perished in Alexandria, and 45,000 more died outside the city.

1861 – American Civil War: First Battle of Bull Run – at Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war begins and ends in a victory for the Confederate army.

1865 – In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots and kills Davis Tutt in what is regarded as the first western showdown.

1873 – At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American Old West.

1877 – After rioting by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers and the deaths of nine rail workers at the hands of the Maryland militia, workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania stage a sympathy strike that is met with an
assault by the state militia.

1904 – Louis Rigolly, a Frenchman, becomes the first man to break the 100 mph (161 km/h) barrier on land. He drove a 15-liter Gobron-Brille in Ostend, Belgium.

1918 – U-156 shells Nauset Beach, in Orleans, Massachusetts. This is the first time that the United States is shelled since the Mexican-American War.

1925 – Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.

1925 – Sir Malcolm Campbell becomes the first man to break the 150 mph (241 km/h) land barrier at Pendine Sands in Wales. He drove a Sunbeam at a two-way average speed of 150.33 mph (242 km/h).

1949 – The United States Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty.

1959 – Elijah Jerry “Pumpsie” Green becomes the first African-American to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last team to integrate. He came in as a pinch runner for Vic Wertz and stayed in as shortstop in a 2-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

1960 – Sirimavo Bandaranaike is elected Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and becomes the world’s first woman prime minister.

1961 – Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 4 Mission – Gus Grissom piloting Liberty Bell 7 becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).

1983 – The world’s lowest temperature is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −89.2 °C (−129 °F).

1997 – The fully restored USS Constitution (aka Old Ironsides) celebrates her 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.

2005 – Four terrorist bombings, occurring exactly two weeks after the similar July 7 bombings, target London’s public transportation system. All four bombs fail to detonate and all four suspected suicide bombers are captured and later convicted and imprisoned for long terms.

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Born on July 21:
1620 – Jean Picard, French astronomer (d. 1682)
1816 – Paul Reuter, German-born British journalist (d. 1899)
1851 – Sam Bass, American train robber and outlaw (d. 1878)
1899 – Ernest Hemingway, American writer, Nobel laureate (d. 1961)
1924 – Don Knotts, American actor (d. 2006)
1938 – Janet Reno, 79th United States Attorney General
1944 – Paul Wellstone, American politician (d. 2002)
1946 – Kenneth Starr, American lawyer
1948 – Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), English singer/songwriter
1948 – Garry Trudeau, American cartoonist
1951 – Robin Williams, American comedian/actor
1957 – Jon Lovitz, American comedian

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Today in Alaskan history:
1922 Jay Hammond , Alaska’s governor from 1974 to 1982, was born.

1969 Governor Keith Miller declared “Lunar Landing Day in Alaska” and gave stateworkers the day off in celebration of Apollo 11′s successful landing on the moon.

1871 – British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.

1877 – Rioting in Baltimore, Maryland by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers is put down by the state militia, resulting in nine deaths.

1881 – Indian Wars:Sioux Chief Sitting Bull leads the last of his fugitive people in surrender to United States troops at Fort Buford, North Dakota

1894 – The troops sent by Grover Cleveland to Chicago to end the Pullman Strike are recalled.

1903 – Ford Motor Company ships its first car.

1921 – Air mail service begins between New York City and San Francisco.

1921 – Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson became the first woman to preside over the US House of Representatives.

1928 – The government of Hungary issues a decree ordering Gypsies to end their nomadic ways, settle permanently in one place, and subject themselves to the same laws and taxes as other Hungarians.

1932 – In Washington, D.C., police fire tear gas on World War I veterans part of the Bonus Expeditionary Force who attempt to march to the White House.

1933 – In London, 500,000 march against anti-Semitism.

1933 – Germany: Two-hundred Jewish merchants are arrested in Nuremberg and paraded through the streets.

1934 – Labor unrest in the U.S., as police in Minneapolis fire upon striking truck drivers, during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934, killing two and wounding sixty-seven.

1934 – 1934 West Coast waterfront strike: In Seattle, police fire tear gas on and club 2,000 striking longshoremen. The governor of Oregon calls out the National Guard to break a strike on the Portland docks.

1938 – The United States Department of Justice files suit in New York City against the motion picture industry charging violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act in regards to the studio system. The case would
eventually result in a break-up of the industry in 1948.

1940 – Denmark leaves the League of Nations.

1940 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Hatch Act of 1939, limiting political activity by Federal government employees.

1942 – World War II: The first unit of the Women’s Army Corps begins training in Des Moines, Iowa.

1944 – World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt (known as the 20 July plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt wins the Democratic Party nomination for the fourth and final time at the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

1945 – The US Congress approves the Bretton Woods Agreement.

1946 – World War II: The US Congress’s Pearl Harbor Committee says Franklin D. Roosevelt is completely blameless for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and calls for a unified command structure in the armed
forces.

1948 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman issues a peacetime military draft in the United States amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union.

1948 – In New York City, twelve leaders of the Communist Party USA are indicted under the Smith Act including William Z. Foster and Gus Hall.

1954 – At Geneva, Switzerland, an armistice is signed that ends fighting in Vietnam and divides the country along the 17th parallel.

1968 – Special Olympics founded.

1969 – Apollo Program: Apollo 11 successfully lands on the Moon at 20:17 UTC on July 20. Neil Armstrong becomes first human to step foot on the Moon.

1971 – The Soviet Union says it will support the People’s Republic of China’s admission to the United Nations

1973 – The US Senate passes the War Powers Act.

1973 – Vietnam War: In testimony by Assistant Secretary of Defense Jerry Friedheim to the US Senate Committee on Armed Services, the US Defense Department admits it lied to US Congress about bombing
Cambodia .

1976 – The American Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.

1977 – The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments.

1982 – Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings: The Provisional IRA detonates two bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park in central London, killing eight soldiers, wounding forty-seven people, and leading to the
deaths of seven horses.

1987 – UN Security Council Resolution 598, condemning the Iran–Iraq War and demanding cease-fire, is unanimously adopted.

1994 – Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9′s Fragment Q1 hits Jupiter.

1998 – Two hundred aid workers from CARE International, Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups leave Afghanistan on orders of the Taliban.

2000 – Carlos the Jackal sues France in the European Court of Human Rights for allegedly torturing him.

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Born on July 20:
356 BCE – Alexander the Great, Macedonean king and conqueror of Persia (d. 323 BC)
1890 – King George II of Greece (d. 1947)
1929 – Mike Ilitch, American businessman and sports executive (Owner of Detroit Red Wings)
1945 – Larry Craig, American politician
1958 – Billy Mays, American pitchman (d. 2009)
1964 – Chris Cornell, American musician (Soundgarden, Audioslave)
1964 – Terri Irwin, American naturalist; widow of Steve Irwin
1973 – Peter Forsberg, Swedish ice hockey player
1978 – Pavel Datsyuk, Russian ice hockey player (My favorite currently playing hockey player)

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Today in Alaskan history:
1929 Alaska Washington Airways initiated fly-in fishing service by taking a group to Hasselborg Lake on Admiralty Island.

1939 A fire consumed the Haines Power Plant, the Post Office, and a theater. The Chilkoot Barracks provided emergency electric power to Haines

1692 – Salem Witch Trials: five women are hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.

1701 – Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.

1843 – Brunel’s steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and also becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.

1848 – Women’s rights: a two-day Women’s Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York; there the “Bloomers” are introduced.

1912 – A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg explodes over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona causing approximately 16,000 pieces of debris to rain down on the town.

1919 – Following Peace Day celebrations marking the end of World War I, ex-servicemen riot and burn down Luton Town Hall. (Hey! At least they waited until Peace Day was over!)

1963 – Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 metres (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.

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Born on July 19:
1814 – Samuel Colt, American firearms inventor (d. 1862)
1922 – George McGovern, American politician, delegate from South Dakota

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Today in Alaskan history:
1978 Governor Jay Hammond sent out invitations to bid on Alaska’s royalty share of Prudhoe Bay natural gas .