Friday, July 22

This Day In History

• 1587   A second English colony, also fated to vanish under mysterious circumstances, was established on Roanoke Island off North Carolina.
• 1796   Cleveland was founded by Gen. Moses Cleaveland.
• 1916   A bomb went off during a Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco, killing 10 people.
• 1926   Babe Ruth proved that he could catch a baseball. In a stunt at Mitchell Field in New York, Ruth, a private in the National Guard, caught a baseball that was dropped from an airplane. The plane was at 250 feet and traveling at about 100 miles-per-hour. As the cowhide hit the leather of Ruth’s glove, the ‘Bambino’ said, “Eeeeeeeooooooowwwwwcccchhh!”
• 1933   American aviator Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world in seven days, 18 1/2 hours.
• 1934   Public enemy number one, the notorious John Dillinger, was gunned down and mortally wounded by FBI agents at the Biograph Theatre in Chicago, IL.
• 1937   The Senate rejected President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court.
• 1942   Gasoline rationing involving the use of coupons began along the Atlantic seaboard.
• 1943   American forces led by Gen. George S. Patton captured Palermo, Sicily.
• 1946   Jewish extremists blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing about 100 people.
• 1955   U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon chaired a cabinet meeting in Washington, D.C. It was the first time that a Vice President had carried out this task.
• 1975   Confederate General Robert E. Lee had his U.S. citizenship restored by the U.S. Congress.
• 1981   Turkish extremist Mehmet Ali Agca was sentenced in Rome to life in prison for shooting Pope John Paul II.
• 1991   Police in Milwaukee arrested serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
• 1992   Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxury prison near Medellin.
• 1994   O.J. Simpson pleaded innocent to the slaying of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
• 1995   Susan Smith was convicted by a jury in Union, S.C., of first-degree murder for drowning her two sons.
• 1998   Iran tested a medium-range missile capable of reaching Israel or Saudi Arabia.
• 2002   Factory worker Alejandro Avila was charged with murder and kidnapping in the abduction and slaying of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion of Stanton, Calif.
• 2003   Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai were killed when U.S. forces stormed a villa in Mosul, Iraq.
• 2003   Months after her prisoner-of-war ordeal, Pvt. 1st Class Jessica Lynch returned home to a hero's welcome in Elizabeth, W.Va.

Happy Birthday To

• 1822   Gregor (Johann) Mendel (botanist: his theories formed basis of genetics and heredity in today’s science; died Jan 6, 1884)
• 1890   Rose (Fitzgerald) Kennedy (mother of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy; died Jan 22, 1995)
• 1898   Stephen Vincent Benét (Pulitzer prize-winning poet: [1937], John Brown’s Body [1929], Western Star [1944]; author: The Devil and Daniel Webster; died Mar 13, 1943)
• 1923   Bob (Robert) Dole (U.S. Senate majority leader, 1996 GOP candidate for president of U.S.)
• 1928   Orson Bean (Dallas Burroughs)
• 1940   Alex Trebek (game show host)
• 1946   Danny Glover (actor)