Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 12, 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale announced his choice of U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running-mate; Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major-party ticket.
On this date:
In 1543, England’s King Henry VIII married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr.
In 1812, United States forces led by Gen. William Hull entered Canada during the War of 1812 against Britain. (However, Hull retreated shortly thereafter to Detroit.)
In 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill authorizing the Army Medal of Honor.
In 1908, comedian Milton Berle was born Mendel Berlinger in New York City.
In 1909, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing for a federal income tax, and submitted it to the states. (It was declared ratified in February 1913.)
In 1965, the Beach Boys single “California Girls” was released by Capitol Records.
In 1967, rioting erupted in Newark, New Jersey, over the police beating of a Black taxi driver; 26 people were killed in the five days of violence that followed.
In 1974, President Richard Nixon signed a measure creating the Congressional Budget Office. Former White House aide John Ehrlichman and three others were convicted of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Daniel Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist.
In 1991, a Japanese professor (Hitoshi Igarashi) who had translated Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” was found stabbed to death, nine days after the novel’s Italian translator was attacked in Milan.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton, visiting Germany, went to the eastern sector of Berlin, the first U.S. president to do so since Harry Truman.
In 2003, the USS Ronald Reagan, the first carrier named for a living president, was commissioned in Norfolk, Virginia.
In 2012: Vice President Joe Biden rallied support for President Barack Obama at the NAACP’s convention in Houston, declaring that Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s election-year agenda would hurt — not help — working families in the black community. A scathing report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh said the late Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials had buried child sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade earlier to avoid bad publicity.
In 2016, with hugs and handshakes, Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton for president during an appearance in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
In 2017: President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, Christopher Wray, told a Senate panel that he did not believe that a special counsel investigation into possible Russian ties between Russia and the Trump campaign was a “witch hunt,” as Trump had characterized it. Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was found guilty of corruption and money laundering and sentenced to almost 10 years in prison.
In 2021: New COVID-19 cases per day in the U.S. were more than twice as high as just three weeks earlier, jumping to an average of about 23,600; the increase was driven by the fast-spreading Delta variant, lagging vaccination rates and Fourth of July gatherings. Fire swept through a coronavirus ward at a hospital in southern Iraq, killing more than 90 people; it was the second catastrophic fire in less than three months to kill hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Iraq. Former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards died at 93; the Democrat had served four terms as governor and dominated the state’s politics for decades, but also spent eight years in federal prison for taking payoffs to help steer riverboat casino licenses to his cronies.
Celebrity Birthdays
July 12: Actor Denise Nicholas (“In the Heat of the Night”) is 79. Singer Walter Egan is 75. Fitness guru Richard Simmons is 75. Actor Cheryl Ladd (“Charlie’s Angels”) is 72. Singer Ricky McKinnie of The Blind Boys of Alabama is 71. Actor Mel Harris (“thirtysomething”) is 67. Gospel singer Sandi Patty is 67. Guitarist Dan Murphy of Soul Asylum is 61. Actor Judi Evans (“Days of Our Lives”) is 59. Singer Robin Wilson of the Gin Blossoms is 58. Actor Lisa Nicole Carson (“Ally McBeal”) is 54. Country singer Shannon Lawson is 50. Rapper Magoo is 50. Actor Anna Friel (“Monarch,” “Pushing Daisies”) is 47. Singer Tracie Spencer is 47. Actor Alison Wright (“The Americans”) is 47. Actor Steve Howey (“Reba”) is 46. Actor Topher Grace (“That ’70s Show”) is 45. Actor Michelle Rodriguez (“The Fast and The Furious” films, “Lost”) is 45. Actor Kristen Connolly (“Zoo”) is 43. Singer-guitarist Kimberly Perry of The Band Perry is 40. Actor Matt Cook (“Man with a Plan”) is 39. Actor Natalie Martinez (“Under the Dome”) is 39. Actor Ta’Rhonda Jones (“Empire”) is 35. Actor Melissa O’Neill (“The Rookie”) is 35. Actor Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” ″House of Cards”) is 33. Actor Erik Per Sullivan (“Malcolm in the Middle”) is 32.