Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 30, 1945, the Portland class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, having just delivered components of the atomic bomb to Tinian in the Mariana Islands, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine; only 317 out of nearly 1,200 men survived.
On this date:
In 1619, the first representative assembly in America convened in Jamestown in the Virginia Colony.
In 1729, Baltimore, Maryland, was founded.
In 1864, during the Civil War, Union forces tried to take Petersburg, Virginia, by exploding a gunpowder-laden mine shaft beneath Confederate defense lines; the attack failed.
In 1916, German saboteurs blew up a munitions plant on Black Tom, an island near Jersey City, New Jersey, killing about a dozen people.
In 1918, poet Joyce Kilmer, a sergeant in the 165th U.S. Infantry Regiment, was killed during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I. (Kilmer is remembered for his poem “Trees.”)
In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure making “In God We Trust” the national motto, replacing “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of many, one).
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a measure creating Medicare, which began operating the following year.
In 1980, Israel’s Knesset passed a law reaffirming all of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.
In 2008, ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic (RA’-doh-van KA’-ra-jich) was extradited to The Hague to face genocide charges after nearly 13 years on the run. (He was sentenced by a U.N. court in 2019 to life imprisonment after being convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.)
In 2010, the Afghan Taliban confirmed the death of longtime leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and appointed his successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.
In 2012: Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney, on a visit to Israel, outraged Palestinians by telling Jewish donors that their culture was part of the reason Israel was more economically successful than the Palestinians. At the London Olympics, American teenager Missy Franklin won the women’s 100-meter backstroke before Matt Grevers led a 1-2 finish for the U.S. in the men’s race.
In 2016, 16 people died when a hot air balloon caught fire and exploded after hitting high-tension power lines before crashing into a pasture near Lockhart, Texas, about 60 miles northeast of San Antonio.
In 2017: Three days after the U.S. Congress approved sanctions against Russia in response to its meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the United States would have to cut the number of embassy and consulate staff in Russia by 755.
In 2020, John Lewis was eulogized in Atlanta by three former presidents and others who urged Americans to continue the work of the civil rights icon in fighting injustice during a moment of racial reckoning. Herman Cain, a former Republican presidential candidate and former CEO of a pizza chain who became an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, died in Atlanta of complications from the coronavirus at the age of 74; he was hospitalized less than two weeks after attending Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he was photographed not wearing a mask.
In 2021: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis barred school districts from requiring students to wear masks when the new school year began. Broadway theater operators announced that COVID-19 vaccinations and masks would be required when theaters reopened in the weeks ahead. Japan expanded a coronavirus state of emergency to four more areas in addition to Tokyo following record spikes in infections as the capital hosted the Olympics. The first flight evacuating Afghans who’d worked alongside Americans in Afghanistan brought more than 200 people to new lives in the United States; the flight that landed outside Washington, D.C., carried translators and close family members.
July 30: Blues guitarist Buddy Guy is 87. Singer Paul Anka is 82. Jazz saxophonist David Sanborn is 78. Actor William Atherton (“Die Hard” films”) is 76. Actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger is 76. Actor Jean Reno (“The Da Vinci Code,” ″Godzilla”) is 75. Actor Ken Olin is 69. Actor Delta Burke is 67. Actor Richard Burgi (“Desperate Housewives”) is 65. Singer-songwriter Kate Bush is 65. Country singer Neal McCoy is 65. Director Richard Linklater (“Boyhood,” “Dazed and Confused”) is 63. Actor Laurence Fishburne is 62. Actor Lisa Kudrow (“Friends”) is 60. Guitarist Dwayne O’Brien of Little Texas is 60. Actor Vivica A. Fox is 59. Actor Terry Crews (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” ″Everybody Hates Chris”) is 55. Actor Simon Baker (“The Mentalist”) is 54. Director Christopher Nolan (“Memento,” ″Insomnia”) is 53. Actor Tom Green is 52. Drummer Brad Hargreaves of Third Eye Blind is 52. Actor Christine Taylor (“Dodgeball,” “The Brady Bunch Movie”) is 52. Comedian Dean Edwards (“Saturday Night Live”) is 50. Actor Hilary Swank is 49. Actor Jaime Pressly (“Mom,” “My Name Is Earl”) is 46. Singer-guitarist Seth Avett of The Avett Brothers is 43. Actor April Bowlby (“Drop Dead Diva,” ″Two and a Half Men”) is 43. Actor Yvonne Strahovski (“Chuck”) is 41. Actor Martin Starr (“Silicon Valley,” ″Freaks and Geeks”) is 41. Actor Gina Rodriguez (“Jane the Virgin”) is 39. Actor Joey King (TV’s “Fargo”) is 24.