Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 29, 1981, Britain’s Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in a glittering ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. (The couple divorced in 1996.)
On this date:
In 1890, artist Vincent van Gogh, 37, died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.
In 1914, transcontinental telephone service in the U.S. became operational with the first test conversation between New York and San Francisco.
In 1921, Adolf Hitler became the leader (“fuehrer”) of the National Socialist German Workers Party.
In 1957, the International Atomic Energy Agency was established. Jack Paar made his debut as host of NBC’s “Tonight Show.”
In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA.
In 1967, an accidental rocket launch on the deck of the supercarrier USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin resulted in a fire and explosions that killed 134 servicemen. (Among the survivors was future Arizona senator John McCain, a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who narrowly escaped with his life.)
In 1968, Pope Paul the Sixth reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s stance against artificial methods of birth control.
In 1980, a state funeral was held in Cairo, Egypt, for the deposed Shah of Iran, who had died two days earlier at age 60.
In 1986, a federal jury in New York found that the National Football League had committed an antitrust violation against the rival United States Football League. But in a hollow victory for the U-S-F-L, the jury ordered the N-F-L to pay token damages of only three dollars.
In 1994, abortion opponent Paul Hill shot and killed Dr. John Bayard Britton and Britton’s escort, James H. Barrett, outside the Ladies Center clinic in Pensacola, Florida. (Hill was executed in Sept. 2003.)
In 1999, a former day trader, apparently upset over stock losses, opened fire in two Atlanta brokerage offices, killing nine people and wounding 13 before shooting himself to death; authorities said Mark O. Barton had also killed his wife and two children.
In 2012, standing on Israeli soil, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States had “a solemn duty and a moral imperative” to block Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. At the London Olympics, Dana Vollmer of the United States set a world record to win the 100-meter butterfly in 55.98 seconds. Yannick Agnel rallied the French to the gold medal in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay in 3 minutes, 9.93 seconds, pulling ahead of American star Ryan Lochte on the final lap.
In 2016, former suburban Chicago police officer Drew Peterson was given an additional 40 years in prison for trying to hire someone to kill the prosecutor who put him behind bars for killing his third wife.
In 2017, U.S. and South Korean forces conducted joint live-fire exercises in response to North Korea’s second launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile; experts said the North Korean launch showed that a large portion of the United States was now within range of North Korea’s arsenal.
In 2021, with teammate Simone Biles watching from the stands, American Sunisa Lee won the gold medal in women’s all-around gymnastics at the Tokyo Games; she was the fifth straight American woman to claim the Olympic title in the event. (Biles withdrew from the event, which she was favored to win, to focus on her mental well-being.) President Joe Biden announced sweeping new pandemic requirements aimed at boosting vaccination rates for millions of federal workers and contractors. Former Sen. Carl Levin, a Democrat who was a powerful voice for the military during his career as Michigan’s longest-serving U.S. senator, died at 87. The Detroit Pistons selected Oklahoma State’s Cade Cunningham with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.
July 29: Actor Robert Fuller (“Laramie,” ″Emergency!”) is 90. Actor Roz Kelly (“Happy Days”) is 81. Keyboardist Neal Doughty of REO Speedwagon is 77. Actor Mike Starr (“Ed,” ″Goodfellas”) is 73. Documentary maker Ken Burns is 70. TV personality Tim Gunn (“Project Runway”) is 70. Singer-bassist Geddy Lee of Rush is 70. Singer Patti Scialfa of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band is 70. Actor Alexandra Paul (“Baywatch”) is 60. Actor Dean Haglund (“The X Files”) is 58. Country singer Martina McBride is 57. Drummer Chris Gorman of Belly is 56. Actor Tim Omundson (“Psych”) is 54. Actor Ato Essandoh (film’s “Django Unchained,” TV’s “Elementary”) is 51. Actor Wil Wheaton (“Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Stand By Me”) is 51. Actor Stephen Dorff is 50. Singer Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men is 50. Country singer James Otto is 50. Actor Josh Radnor (“How I Met Your Mother”) is 49. Musician Danger Mouse is 46. Actor Rachel Miner (“Supernatural”) is 43. Actor Kaitlyn Black (“Hart of Dixie”) is 40. Actor Cait Fairbanks (“The Young and The Restless”) is 30.