Today in History
Today’s highlight:
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:
1776: Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, outside the State House, now Independence Hall, in Philadelphia.
1889: The Wall Street Journal was first published.
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.
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.
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.”
1975: President Gerald R. Ford announced he would seek a second term of office.
1994: Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s communist leader since 1948, died at age 82.
2011: Former first lady Betty Ford died in Rancho Mirage, California, at age 93. Atlantis thundered into orbit on a cargo run that would close out the three-decade U.S. space shuttle program.
2012: Roger Federer equaled Pete Sampras’ record of seven men’s singles titles at the All England Club and won his 17th Grand Slam title overall, beating Andy Murray 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.
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.
2018: Divers rescued four of the 12 boys who’d been trapped in a flooded cave in northern Thailand with their soccer coach for more than two weeks. The remaining eight boys and their coach were rescued over the next two days.
Ten years ago: The largest spy swap between the U.S. and Russia since the Cold War unfolded as 10 people accused of spying in suburban America pleaded guilty to conspiracy and were ordered deported to Russia in exchange for the release of four prisoners accused of spying for the West.
Five years ago: On a rough day for tech, a “router issue” at United Airlines suspended all of the company’s flights for nearly two hours, leading to 800 flight delays and 60 cancellations; a “technical problem” at the New York Stock Exchange halted trading; and the Wall Street Journal’s website, Wsj.com, had “technical difficulties.” Government officials said it did not appear that the incidents were related, or the result of sabotage.
One year ago: Iran began enriching uranium to 4.5%, just breaking the limit set by its nuclear deal with world powers.