Thursday, July 14, 2005

Thursday, July 14

This Day In History

  • 1789   During the French Revolution, citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside.
  • 1798   Congress passed the Sedition Act, making it a federal crime to publish false, scandalous or malicious writing about the U.S. government.
  • 1868   Alvin J. Fellows of New Haven, CT patented the tape measure.
  • 1881   The outlaw known as Billy the Kid was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, N.M.
  • 1921   Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were convicted in Dedham, Mass., of killing a shoe company paymaster and his guard.
  • 1933   All German political parties except the Nazi Party were outlawed.
  • 1951   In his last race, Citation became the winningest thoroughbred in horse racing as he won the Hollywood Gold Cup at Hollywood Park. Citation earned a total of $1,085,760 in his career.
  • 1958   The army of Iraq overthrew the monarchy.
  • 1965   U.S. Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, died in London at age 65.
  • 1966   Eight student nurses were murdered by Richard Speck in a Chicago dormitory.
  • 1976   Jimmy Carter won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in New York City.
  • 1997   The international war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb, to 20 years in prison for turning on his Muslim and Croat neighbors in a deadly campaign of terror and torture.
  • 1999   Race-based school busing in Boston ended after 25 years.
  • 1999   Major league baseball umpires voted to resign and not work the final month of the season.
  • 2000   A Florida jury ordered five major tobacco companies to pay smokers a record $145 billion in punitive damages.
Happy Birthday To
  • 1910   William Hanna (cartoonist: half of Hanna-Barbera team)
  • 1912   Woody (Woodrow Wilson) Guthrie (‘father of modern American folk music’: singer, songwriter: This Land is Your Land, Hard Travelin’, Union Maid, So Long It’s Been Good to Know Yuh, Dirty Overhalls, Pretty Boy Floyd, The Sinking of the Reuben James, more than 1,000 original songs; father of folk singer Arlo Guthrie; died Oct 4, 1967)
  • 1913   Gerald R. Ford (Leslie King, Jr.: changed name to Gerald Ford after his adoptive father) (38th U.S. President [1974-1977]; married to Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Bloomer [three sons, one daughter]; nickname: Jerry; first non-elected vice president and president: Vice President under President Richard Nixon, assumed presidency upon resignation of Nixon; one of seven left-handed Presidents [others were/are: James A. Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Harry S Truman, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Bill Clinton])
  • 1918   Ingmar Bergman (Academy Award-winning director)
  • 1930   Polly Bergen (Nellie Burgin) (actress; TV panelist: To Tell the Truth)
  • 1932   Roosevelt ‘Rosey’ Grier (football; actor)

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