Sunday, July 10

This Day In History

• 1832   President Andrew Jackson vetoed legislation to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.
• 1850   Vice President Millard Fillmore assumed the presidency following the death of Zachary Taylor.
• 1890   Wyoming became the 44th state.
• 1919   President Woodrow Wilson personally delivered the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate and urged its ratification.
• 1920   Pioneering TV news anchorman David Brinkley was born in Wilmington, N.C.
• 1925   The official news agency of the Soviet Union, TASS, was established.
• 1929   The U.S. government began issuing paper money in the small size we currently carry.
• 1943   U.S. and British forces invaded Sicily during World War II.
• 1949   The first practical rectangular television picture tube was presented. The tube measured 12 by 16 inches and sold for $12.
• 1951   Armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean conflict began at Kaesong.
• 1962   The Telstar communications satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
• 1964   The album ''A Hard Day's Night'' by the Beatles was released.
• 1973   The Bahamas became independent after three centuries of British colonial rule.
• 1979   Conductor Arthur Fiedler, who had led the Boston Pops orchestra for a half-century, died at age 84.
• 1985   Bowing to pressure from irate customers, Coca-Cola Co. said it would resume selling old-formula Coke, while continuing to sell New Coke.
• 1989   Mel Blanc, who supplied the voices for cartoon characters including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, died at age 81.
• 1991   Boris N. Yeltsin took the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian republic.
• 1991   President George H.W. Bush lifted economic sanctions against South Africa, citing its ''profound transformation'' toward racial equality.
• 1992   A federal judge in Miami sentenced former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, convicted of drug and racketeering charges, to 40 years in prison.
• 1995   Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from almost six years of house arrest in Yangon, Myanmar.
• 1997   Scientists in London said DNA from a Neanderthal skeleton supported a theory that all humanity descended from an ''African Eve'' 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
• 1999   The U.S. women's soccer team won the World Cup at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
• 1866   Edison P. Clark of Northampton, MA patented his indelible pencil.
• 1890   Wyoming, the state with the smallest population entered the Union this day. The 44th state was named after an Algonquin Indian word meaning ‘large prairie place’. Appropriately, the Indian paintbrush that covers much of the large prairie is the state flower and the meadowlark, frequently seen circling the prairie land, is the state bird. Another Indian term, Cheyenne, is also the name of the state capital. Wyoming is called the Equality State because it is the first state to have granted women the right to vote (1869).
• 1900   One of the most famous trademarks in the world, ‘His Master’s Voice’, was registered with the U.S. Patent Office. The logo of the Victor Talking Machine Company, and later, RCA Victor, shows the dog, Nipper, looking into the horn of a gramophone machine.

Happy Birthday To

• 1834   James (Abbott McNeill) Whistler (artist: Whistler’s Mother)
• 1839   Adolphus Busch (brewer: founder of Anheuser-Busch, the world’s largest beer brewery; died Oct 10, 1913)
• 1920   David Brinkley (TV journalist: The Huntley-Brinkley Report, This Week with David Brinkley; died June 11, 2003)
• 1926   Fred Gwynne (actor: The Munsters)
• 1943   Arthur Ashe (International Tennis Hall of Famer)