Monday, July 24, 2017

THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― JULY 20

July 20 is the 201st day of the year (202nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 164 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday (58 in 400 years each) than on Saturday or Sunday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Tuesday or Thursday (56).
 

1304 
― Wars of Scottish Independence: The Seige of Stirling Castle ― King Edward I of England takes the last rebel stronghold of the war.

1714 
― The Riot Act was passed in Great Britain, coming into force on August 1, 1715.

1808 
― Napoleon decrees all French Jews adopt French family names.


1847 ― German astronomer Theodor Borson discovers Comet 23/P Brorsen-Metcalf.


1881 ― Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull, surrenders to U.S. troops.

1889 
― 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.

1894 ― 2000 Federal troops are recalled from Chicago, having ended the Pullman strike.

1917 ― The WW I draft lottery held; #258 is the first number drawn.


1921 ― Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson (Oklahoma) became the first woman to preside over the US House of Representatives.


1941 ― Death March of 1,200 Jews from Lipcani Moldavia begins. -- Encyclopedia of Jewish Families in Romania


1944 
― Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by Germany army officer Claus Von Stauffenberg.

1948 
― 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.

1954 ― Armistice for Indo-China signed, Vietnam separates into North & South.


1960 ― The first submerged submarine to fire a Polaris missile (George Washington).


1969 ― The first men on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from Apollo 11.


1972  ― The results of a two-year study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation are released; the study concludes that 1960-63 Chevrolet Corvair models are at least as safe as comparable models of other cars sold in the same period, directly contradicting charges made by the leading consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

1973 ― The U.S. Senate passes the War Powers Resolution.


1976 ― On the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, the Viking 1 lander, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, becomes the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of Mars.

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


1984 ― 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 fugitives.

1995 ― The Regents of the University of California vote to end all affirmative action in the UC system by 1997.


2000 ― Terrorist Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramírez Sánchez) sues France in the European Court of Human Rights for allegedly torturing him.


2012 ― Twelve people are killed and 59 injured after a gunman opens fire at a Dark Knight movie premier in Aurora, Colorado.


TODAY'S BIRTHS

1304 – Petrarch, Italian poet and scholar (d. 1374)

1822 – Gregor Mendel, Austro-German monk, geneticist and botanist (d. 1884)

1919 – Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer and explorer (d. 2008)

1933 – Cormac McCarthy, American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

From Wikipedia and Googleexcept as noted.

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