Today is Monday, July 8th, the 190th day of 2024. There are 176 days left this year.
Today’s History Highlights:
On July 8, 2018, divers rescued four of 12 boys who had been trapped for more than two weeks in a flooded cave in northern Thailand, along with their soccer coach. (The remaining eight boys and the coach were rescued over the next two days.)
In 1776, Colonel John Nixon read the Declaration of Independence in public for the first time outside the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.
In 1853, an expedition led by Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay, Japan, to establish diplomatic and trade relations with Japan.
The first issue of The Wall Street Journal was published in 1889.
In 1947, the New Mexico newspaper, the Roswell Daily Record, reported that officials at the Roswell Army Air Field said they had recovered a “flying saucer” that had crashed on a ranch. Officials later announced that it was actually a weather balloon.
In 1950, President Harry S. Truman appointed General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander of the United Nations Command in Korea. (Truman fired MacArthur nine months later for insubordination.)
In 1972, the Nixon administration announced a deal to sell $750 million worth of grain to the Soviet Union (but the Soviets were secretly buying subsidized American grain, creating what critics called “the Great Grain Robbery”).
In 1994, Kim Il-sung, the communist leader of North Korea since 1948, died at the age of 82.
In 2000, Venus Williams defeated Lindsay Davenport to win her first Grand Slam title, becoming the first black female champion at Wimbledon since Althea Gibson in 1958.
In 2010, the largest spy swap between the United States and Russia since the Cold War took place, when 10 people accused of spying on American outskirts pleaded guilty to conspiracy and were ordered deported to Russia in exchange for the release of four prisoners accused of spying for the West.
In 2011, Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center, beginning the 135th and final Space Shuttle mission.
In 2021, President Joe Biden said that U.S. operations in Afghanistan would end on August 31. In a speech from the East Room of the White House, Biden made an impassioned case for withdrawing from the nearly two-decade-old war without sacrificing any more American lives, but acknowledged that there would be no “mission accomplished” moment to celebrate.
In 2022, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated by gunfire in the back on a street in western Japan while giving an election speech.
Today’s birthdays: Actor Jeffrey Tambor is 80. Drummer Jaimo Johansson (Allman Brothers Band) is 80. Actor Kim Darby is 77. Child musician Raffi is 76. Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck is 75. Actor Anjelica Huston is 73. Author Anna Quindlen is 72. Author and politician Marianne Williamson is 72. Pro Football Hall of Famer Jack Lambert is 72. Actor Kevin Bacon is 66. Singer Joan Osborne is 62. Actor Rocky Carroll (TV’s Rock) is 61. Actor Lee Tergesen (TV’s Oz) is 59. Actor Billy Crudup is 56. Actor Michael Weatherly (TV’s NCIS) is 56. Musician Beck is 54. Actor Kathleen Robertson is 51. Christian rock musician Steven Mason (Jars of Clay) is 49. Actor Milo Ventimiglia is 47. Actor Lance Gross (TV: Tyler Perry’s House of Payne) is 43. Actor Sophia Bush is 42. Actor Maya Hawke is 26. Actor Jaden Smith is 26.
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