Thursday, July 7

This Day In History

• 1846   U.S. annexation of California was proclaimed at Monterey after the surrender of a Mexican garrison.
• 1865   Four people were hanged in Washington, D.C., after being convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.
• 1898   The United States annexed Hawaii.
• 1920   A device known as the radio compass was used for the first time on a U.S. Navy airplane near Norfolk, Virginia.
• 1930   Construction began on Boulder Dam on the Colorado River.
• 1946   Italian-born Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini was canonized as the first American saint.
• 1954   Elvis Presley made his radio debut as Memphis, Tenn., station WHBQ played his first recording for Sun Records, ''That's All Right.''
• 1958   President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska statehood bill.
• 1969   Canada's House of Commons gave final approval to a measure making the French language equal to English throughout the national government.
• 1983   Eleven-year-old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, left for a visit to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov.
• 1987   Lt. Col. Oliver North began his public testimony at the Iran-Contra hearing, telling Congress that he had ''never carried out a single act, not one'' without authorization.
• 1990   Martina Navratilova won a record ninth women's singles title at Wimbledon, defeating Zina Garrison 6-4, 6-1.
• 1999   In the first class-action lawsuit by smokers to go to trial, a jury in Miami held cigarette makers liable for making a defective product that causes emphysema, lung cancer and other illnesses.
• 1999   President Bill Clinton became the first president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to visit an Indian reservation as he toured the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
• 2003   A federal judge approved a settlement fining WorldCom $750 million for its $11-billion accounting scandal. Hilary Lunke won the U.S. Women's Open.

Happy Birthday To

• 1860   Gustav Mahler (musician, composer, music used in 1971 movie: Death in Venice; died May 18, 1911)
• 1906   Satchel (Leroy Robert) Paige (Baseball Hall of Famer: pitcher)
• 1919   William Kunstler (defense attorney)
• 1922   Pierre Cardin (fashion designer)
• 1927   Doc (Carl) Severinsen (trumpeter, bandleader: The Tonight Show Band)
• 1928   Vince Edwards (Vincent Edward Zoino) (actor: Ben Casey)
• 1940   Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) (drummer: group: The Beatles; singer: It Don’t Come Easy, Photograph, You’re Sixteen; actor: Candy, The Magic Christian, Blindman, Caveman, Give My Regards to Broad Street; married to actress, Barbara Bach)
• 1949   Shelley Duvall (actress)
• 1959   Jessica Hahn (model: Playboy; scandal subject [w/PTL’s Jim Bakker])
• 1980   Michelle Kwan (Olympic Figure Skating Champion)