Today In History...

In 1619 The first representative assembly in America convenes in Jamestown.
In 1729 The city of Baltimore is founded.
In 1792 The French national anthem "La Marseillaise," by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, is first sung in Paris.
In 1864 During the Civil War, Union forces fail in an attack to take Petersburg, VA, by exploding a mine under Confederate defense lines.
In 1916 German saboteurs blow up a munitions plant on Black Tom Island near Jersey City, NJ.
In 1932 The Summer Olympic Games open in Los Angeles, CA.
In 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt signs a bill creating a women's auxiliary agency in the Navy known as Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services, or WAVES.
In 1945 The USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Titian, is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Only 316 out of 1,196 men survive.
In 1946 The first rocket to attain a 100-mile altitude, is launched from White Sands, NM.
In 1956 "In God We Trust" is authorized as the official U.S. slogan.
In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the Medicare Bill which went into effect the following year.
In 1971 Apollo XV lands on Mare Imbrium.
In 1975 Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa mysteriously disappears in Detroit, MI.
In 1975 Representatives of 35 countries convene in Helsinki, Finland, for a conference aimed at ensuring peace in Europe.
In 1979 One infant is killed and 24 injured when softball-size hail drops on Ft. Collins, CO, damaging 2000 homes and 2500 cars.
In 1980 The Israeli Knesset passes a law reaffirming all of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.
In 1981 Thousands of women and children march through the Polish city of Lodz, protesting food shortages.
In 1983 Weightlifter Sergei Didyk of the USSR lifts a record 261 kg.
In 1983 STS-8, the third flight of Challenger is the first night launch and night landing.
In 1984 STS-14, the first flight of Discovery.
In 1985 Officials of 35 countries begin meeting in Finland to mark the 10th anniversary of the Helsinki accords.
In 1986 At his confirmation hearing to become U.S. chief justice, Supreme Court Justice William H. Rehnquist denies allegations he had challenged the qualifications of minority voters at polling places in Phoenix, AZ, in the 1960's.
In 1987 Former White House Chief Of Staff Donald Reagan testifies that he and President Reagan were often "mislead" by security officials during the Iran/Contra affair.
In 1990 British Conservative Party lawmaker Ian Gow is killed in a bombing claimed by the Irish Republican Army.
In 1991 President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev begin their face-to-face meetings in Moscow.
In 1992 A TWA Lockheed L-1011 catches fire during takeoff from New York's Kennedy International Airport; all 292 people aboard survived.
In 1992 At the Barcelona Summer Olympics, Shannon Miller wins the silver medal in the women's all-around gymnastics event.
In 1994 The first U.S. troops land in the Rwandan capital of Kigali to secure the airport for an expanded international aid effort.
In 1994 The world community shuts down air service to Haiti, leaving the army-ruled nation more isolated than ever.
In 1995 Russia and Chechan rebels sign an agreement that calls for a gradual withdrawal of Russian troops and the disarmament of rebel fighters.
In 1996 A federal law enforcement source said security guard Richard Jewell had become a focus of the investigation into the bombing at Centennial Olympic Park. Jewell was later cleared as a suspect.
In 1996 The U.S. Olympic softball team defeats China, 3-1, to win the gold medal.
In 1997 Mideast peace talks are set back when two men bomb Jerusalem's most crowded outdoor market, killing themselves and 15 others.
In 1997 18 people, including two Americans, are killed in a landslide that destroyed two ski lodges in southeast Australia.
In 1998 Japan's parliament declares Keizo Obuchi as its next prime minister.
In 1999 Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded phone conversations of Monica Lewinsky, is charged in Maryland with illegal wiretapping. (Prosecutors later dropped the charges.)
In 2000 President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela wins a another 6-year term in a landslide re-election.
In 2001 Typhoon Toraji blows through Taiwan, killing 61 people.
In 2002 Pope John Paul II canonizes Pedro de San Jose Betancur, Central America's first saint.
In 2002 WNBA player Lisa Leslie becomes the first woman to dunk in a professional game, during the first half of the Los Angeles Sparks' 82-73 loss to the Miami Sol.
In 2003 The last old style Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line in Mexico.

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