1945 ~ Birthday of Ken Livingstone, English politician (first Mayor of London).

Didn't Dick Whittington and a few dozen others get in before him?

I think he was the first "elected" Mayor of London. :shrug:

Dick Whittington, I believe, was appointed Lord Mayor of London ... three times maybe.

Dick Whittington was Lord Mayor of London several times.

June 18th
 

1178 ~ Five Canterbury monks saw what was possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed on the Moon.

1815 ~ British and Prussian troops defeated the French under Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo in Belgium.

1928 ~ Death of Roald Amundsen, Explorer, first to the South Pole.

1942 ~ Birthday of Paul McCartney, Singer & Songwriter.

1942 ~ Birthday of Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa.

1948 ~ The UN Commission on Human Rights adopted its International Declaration of Human Rights.

1967 ~ Jimi Hendrix burned his guitar on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival.

1974 ~ Death of Georgy Zhukov, Marshal of the Soviet Union.

1979 ~ Presidents Carter and Brezhnev signed the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty in Vienna.

1983 ~ Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

June 19th
 

1623 ~ Birthday of Blaise Pascal, Mathematician.

1865 ~ More two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas were finally informed of their freedom.

1896 ~ Birthday of Wallis Warfield, the future Duchess of Windsor.

1934 ~ The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was established.

1937 ~ Death of J.M. Barrie, Author, creator of the character Peter Pan.

1944 ~ First day of the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

1945 ~ Birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi, Politician, recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

1953 ~ Death of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, convicted spies.

1964 ~ The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving a filibuster in the Senate.

1982 ~ An Italian banker, Roberto Calvi, was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London.

1623 ~ Death of Sir William Golding, English writer; Nobel laureate. (Lord of the Flies, Rites of Passage)

1623 ~ Death of Sir William Golding, English writer; Nobel laureate. (Lord of the Flies, Rites of Passage)

Testing us again jseal? 1993.

Dang! I always wince when I see you post to Strange Days, as it usually is to correct an error in my post.

Sorry 'bout that folks, good writer, tho'.

TY!

If an old friend can't keep you on your toes, it leaves room for newbies to horn in.

June 20th
 

1819 ~ Birthday of Jacques Offenbach, Composer.

1837 ~ Queen Victoria ascended to the British throne.

1877 ~ Alexander Graham Bell installed the first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario.

1899 ~ Birthday of Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance in WW II.

1909 ~ Birthday of Errol Flynn, Actor.

1942 ~ Birthday of Brian Wilson, one of The Beach Boys.

1948 ~ The Ed Sullivan Show, (née Toast of the Town) debuted.

1967 ~ Muhammad Ali was convicted of violating Selective Service laws.

1995 ~ Shell Oil abandoned plans to dump its Brent Spar oil rig at sea.

2002 ~ Death of Erwin Chargaff, biochemist.

June 21st
 

1527 ~ Death of Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian Historian & Political Author.

1905 ~ Birthday of Jean-Paul Sartre, Philosopher & Playwright, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 1964.

1908 ~ Death of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian Composer.

1919 ~ Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttled the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Orkney.

1945 ~ The battle for Okinawa ended; 12,520 Americans and 110,000 Japanese were killed in the 83-day campaign.

1964 ~ Three civil rights workers disappeared in Philadelphia, Miss. Their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later.

1984 ~ Birthday of Alicia Alighatti, Porn Actress.

1989 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that flag burning is protected speech under the Constitution.

2004 ~ SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded space plane to achieve spaceflight.

2005 ~ Death of Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila.

June 22nd
 

1856 ~ Birthday of H. Rider Haggard, Author.

1874 ~ Death of Howard Staunton, English chess master, and inspiration for the standard for tournament chess pieces.

1940 ~ WWII: France forced to sign armistice with Germany.

1941 ~ WWII: Germany invaded the USSR.

1969 ~ Death of Judy Garland, Singer & Actress.

1976 ~ Canadian House of Commons voted to abolish capital punishment.

1986 ~ Diego Maradona scored both the Hand of God goal and the Goal of the Century against England during the FIFA World Cup in Mexico City.

1987 ~ Death of Fred Astaire, Dancer & Actor.

1978 ~ Discovery of the first satellite of Pluto, Charon.

2008 ~ Death of George Carlin, Comedian.

June 24th
 

1314 ~ Scotland regained its independence in the Battle of Bannockburn, when Scotland's King Robert I defeated the English.

1519 ~ Death of Lucrezia Borgia, duchess of Ferrara.

1896 ~ Birthday of Jack Dempsey, Heavyweight boxer.

1910 ~ Japan invaded Korea.

1915 ~ Birthday of Fred Hoyle, cosmologist and science fiction author.

1948 ~ Communist forces cut off all land and water routes between West Germany and West Berlin, prompting the U.S. to organize the Berlin Airlift.

1947 ~ Birthday of Mick Fleetwood, Musician (Fleetwood Mac).

1957 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment.

1985 ~ STS-51-G Discovery completed its mission, with Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as the Payload Specialist.

1997 ~ The Roswell Incident debunked by the USAF.

June 25th
 

1876 ~ Col. George A. Custer and his 7th Cavalry were wiped out in the Battle of Little Big Horn.

1894 ~ Birthday of Hermann Oberth, Physicist & one of the founding fathers of Rocketry and Astronautics.

1903 ~ Birthday of George Orwell, Writer.

1950 ~ The Korean War began when North Korea invaded South Korea.

1975 ~ Birthday of Vladimir Kramnik, Russian chess player.

1991 ~ Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia.

1993 ~ Kim Campbell became the first female Prime Minister of Canada.

1997 ~ An unmanned cargo ship crashed into Russia's Mir space station, knocking out half of the station's power and rupturing a pressurized laboratory.

1997 ~ Death of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, French Explorer, Scientist & Inventor.

1998 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 unconstitutional.

June 26th
 

1824 ~ Birthday of Lord Kelvin, Physicist. In 1900, he gave a lecture titled Nineteenth-Century Clouds over the Dynamical Theory of Heat and Light. Talk about prescient!

1898 ~ Birthday of Willy Messerschmitt, Aircraft Designer.

1933 ~ Birthday of Claudio Abbado, Conductor.

1934 ~ Initial flight of the first practical helicopter, the Focke-Wulf 61. You must scroll down a bit through the Hanna Reitsch page to get to the FW-61 entry, but her write up of her experience it is an interesting read.

1959 ~ Queen Elizabeth and President Eisenhower inaugurated the St Lawrence Seaway.

1963 ~ President Kennedy visited West Berlin, where he offered American solidarity to the citizens of West Germany: "Ich bin ein Berliner".

1964 ~ The Beatles released the album A Hard Day's Night.

1997 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendment, and thus unconstitutional.

2003 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas.

2007 ~ Death of Liz Claiborne, Belgian born fashion designer.

June 27th
 

1829 ~ Death of James Smithson, English scientist and philanthropist.

1838 ~ Birthday of Paul von Mauser, Weapon Designer.

1880 ~ Birthday of Helen Keller, spokeswoman for the Deaf and Blind.

1905 ~ Mutiny on the battleship Potemkin.

1950 ~ The U.S. decided to send armed forces to fight in the Korean War.

1954 ~ The world's first nuclear power station went on line in Obninsk, near Moscow.

1957 ~ First British Smoking Causes Lung Cancer report released.

1967 ~ The world's first ATM installed in Enfield, London.

1984 ~ Pierre Trudeau won the Albert Einstein Peace Prize.

2001 ~ Death of Jack Lemmon, Actor & Film Director.

1838 ~ Birthday of Paul von Mauser, Weapon Designer.

A giant among armourers.

I own and use a Mauser G98 which is a minimum 94 years old (max 113) which saw action in 3 wars.

I just looked it up. A good piece of gear, as my brother would say!

As close to an antique as I'll ever own, and it still goes bang.

June 28th
 

1577 ~ Birthday of Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish Baroque Painter.

1712 ~ Birthday of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Franco-Swiss Philosopher.

1880 ~ The Australian bushranger Ned Kelly was captured at Glenrowan.

1914 ~ Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife Sophia were killed by a Serbian nationalist, the casus belli of World War I.

1919 ~ The Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending World War I.

1926 ~ Birthday of Mel Brooks, Filmmaker.

1992 ~ Death of Mikhail Tal, eighth World Chess Champion.

1996 ~ The Citadel voted to admit women, ending a 153-year-old men-only policy at the South Carolina military school.

2001 ~ Death of Mortimer Adler, Philosopher & co-founder of Great Books of the Western World.

2004 ~ The U.S.-led coalition transferred sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government.

June 29th
 

1861 ~ Death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Poet. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…”

1895 ~ Death of Thomas Henry Huxley, Scientist. "Darwin's Bulldog"

1922 ~ France granted 1 km² at Vimy Ridge "freely, and for all time, to the Government of Canada, the free use of the land exempt from all taxes".

1963 ~ Birthday of Anne-Sophie Mutter, Violinist.

1971 ~ Birthday of Kaitlyn Ashley, Porn Actress.

1974 ~ Isabel Peron is sworn in as first female president for Argentina.

1995 ~ U.S. Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with Russian space station Mir.

1995 ~ The Sampoong Department Store collapse disaster.

2003 ~ Death of Katharine Hepburn, Actress.

2007 ~ Apple released the iPhone.

Samuel Colt, inventor of the Colt revolver, born today in 1814. Great idea dm....this could be fun and informative! I love trivial facts! Seems to suggest, be grateful for where you live!

June 30th
 

1905 ~ During his annus mirabilis, Albert Einstein published the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies (PDF) in which he introduced special relativity.

That must have been an exciting period to be a physicist!

1908 ~ Tunguska impact event occurred in Siberia.

1934 ~ Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany took place.

1936 ~ ''Gone with the Wind'' by Margaret Mitchell published.

1943 ~ Birthday of Florence Ballard, American Singer (The Supremes).

1971 ~ The crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft died when the landing capsule depressurized after separating from the main craft.

1990 ~ East and West Germany merged their economies.

1997 ~ The UK returns sovereignty over Hong Kong to the PRC.

2003 ~ Death of Buddy Hackett, American comic.

2007 ~ Death of Ingmar Bergman, Swedish Film-maker.

July 1st
 

1646 ~ Birthday of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German Mathematician & Philosopher.

1863 ~ The American Civil War battle of Gettysburg began.

1916 ~ On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 18,000 British soldiers were killed, and 40,000 wounded.

1925 ~ Death of Erik Satie, French Composer.

1963 ~ The British Government admitted that former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet agent.

1980 ~ "O Canada" became the national anthem of Canada.

2000 ~ Death of Walter Matthau, Actor.

2004 ~ Cassini-Huygens was successfully inserted into orbit around Saturn.

2004 ~ Death of Marlon Brando, Actor.

2007 ~ Smoking in England is banned in all public indoor spaces.

July 2nd
 

1906 ~ Birthday of Hans Bethe, German-born Physicist., awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1967.

1937 ~ Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.

1947 ~ Something the Army Air Force later said was a weather balloon crashed near Roswell, N.M. Eyewitness accounts gave rise to speculation it might have been an alien spacecraft.

1961 ~ Death of Ernest Hemingway, Author, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 1954.

1964 ~ President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.

1966 ~ France began nuclear weapons testing at Moruroa in the South Pacific.

1977 ~ Death of Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born novelist.

1982 ~ Larry Walters attached 45 helium balloons to a lawn chair and ascended into history and to a height of 11,000 feet.

1989 ~ Death of Andrei Gromyko, Soviet politician.

1997 ~ Death of Jimmy Stewart, Actor.

July 3rd
 

1863 ~ The final day of the battle of Gettysburg.

1883 ~ Birthday of Franz Kafka, Czech-born German author.

1935 ~ Death of André Citroën, Automobile Pioneer.

1938 ~ World speed record, 126 mph, set for a steam railway locomotive, by the Mallard.

1962 ~ Algeria became independent after 132 years of French rule.

1969 ~ Death of Brian Jones, English musician (The Rolling Stones).

1969 ~ A test flight of the Soviet N1 rocket ended in a spectactular failure.

1971 ~ Death of Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors.

1986 ~ Death of Rudy Vallee, Singer, Actor, Bandleader, & Entertainer.

1988 ~ USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf.

July 4th
 

1776 ~ The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

1845 ~ Henry David Thoreau began a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond near Concord, Mass.

1855 ~ The first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems Leaves of Grass was published.

1885 ~ Birthday of Louis B. Mayer, Movie Executive (one of the M’s in MGM).

1934 ~ Death of Marie Curie, Polish-born scientist, recipient of he Nobel Prize in Physics 1903.

1971 ~ Birthday of Koko, the sign-language gorilla.

1976 ~ The U.S. celebrated its Bicentennial.

1976 ~ Israeli commandos rescued 100 hostages at Entebbe Airport, Uganda.

1982 ~ Birthday of Hannah Harper, Porn Actress.

2006 ~ North Korea tested four short-range, one medium-range, and a long-range missle over the Sea of Japan.

July 5th
 

1810 ~ Birthday of Phineas Taylor "P. T." Barnum, Circus Owner.

1826 ~ Death of Sir Stamford Raffles, British statesman, the "Father of Singapore".

1911 ~ Birthday of Georges Pompidou, President of France.

1937 ~ Spam was introduced the Hormel Foods Corporation.

1948 ~ British National Health Service (NHS) Act enacted.

1951 ~ William Shockley invented the junction transistor.

1972 ~ Birthday of Letha Weapons, Porn Actress.

1975 ~ Arthur Ashe becomes the first black man to win the Wimbledon singles' championship.

1989 ~ Oliver North received a $150,000 fine and a suspended prison term for his part in the Iran-Contra affair.

1996 ~ Birthday of Dolly the sheep, first cloned mammal.

July 6th
 

1935 ~ Birthday of Tenzin Gyatso, 14th and current Dalai Lama.

1946 ~ Birthday of Sylvester Stallone, Actor, The Italian Stallion.

1957 ~ Althea Gibson became the first black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title.

1964 ~ A Hard Day's Night, the first Beatles film, premiered.

1971 ~ Death of Louis Armstrong, Jazz Musician.

1973 ~ Death of Otto Klemperer, German Conductor.

1974 ~ The radio program A Prairie Home Companion was first broadcast.

1989 ~ The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea was destroyed by explosions and fires killing 167 oil workers.

1997 ~ The rover Sojourner rolled onto the Martian landscape to begin inspecting soil and rocks.

1998 ~ Death of Roy Rogers, Cowboy Actor & Singer.

July 7th
 

1860 ~ Birthday of Gustav Mahler, Austrian Composer.

1887 ~ Birthday of Marc Chagall, Russian-born Painter.

1898 ~ The U.S. annexed Hawaii as a territory.

1907 ~ Birthday of Robert Heinlein, Science Fiction Writer.

1930 ~ Death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish Writer.

1940 ~ Birthday of Ringo Starr, Beatle.

1947 ~ The Roswell UFO incident.

1980 ~ Sharia law established in Iran.

1981 ~ President Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the Supreme Court.

2005 ~ Terrorist bombings in London killed 52 victims and four suicide bombers.

July 8th
 

1822 ~ Death of Percy Shelley, English poet.

1882 ~ Birthday of Percy Grainger, Australian Composer.

1889 ~ In the last championship bare-knuckle boxing match, John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain.

1889 ~ The first issue of the Wall Street Journal published.

1950 ~ General Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of UN forces in Korea.

1983 ~ Birthday of Elizabeth Del Mar, Porn Actress.

1986 ~ Kurt Waldheim was inaugurated as president of Austria despite a controversy over his alleged ties to Nazi war crimes.

1994 ~ Death of Kim Il-sung, North Korean despot.

1997 ~ The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were invited to join NATO.

1997 ~ Mayo Clinic researchers warned that the dieting-drug "fen-phen" could cause severe heart and lung damage.

July 9th
 

1896 ~ William Jennings Bryan delivered his “Cross of Gold” speech.

1879 ~ Birthday of Ottorino Respighi, Italian composer (Pines of Rome, Ancient Airs and Dances).

1900 ~ Queen Victoria gave royal assent to an act creating the Commonwealth of Australia, uniting separate colonies under one federal government.

1911 ~ Birthday of John A. Wheeler, American physicist (coined the terms black hole and wormhole).

1916 ~ Birthday of Edward Heath, P.M. of the UK

1973 ~ The Bahamas' last day as a British colony.

1974 ~ Death of Earl Warren, Governor of California, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1995 ~ The Grateful Dead played their last concert, at Soldier Field in Chicago.

1997 ~ Mike Tyson's boxing license was suspended and he was fined $3 million for biting Evander Holyfield's ear in a televised match.

2001 ~ The Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe received substantial support.

July 10th
 

1839 ~ Birthday of Adolphus Busch, German-born Brewer.

1856 ~ Birthday of Nikola Tesla, Croatian physicist.

1940 ~ The Luftwaffe began the Battle of Britain.

1962 ~ The world's first active communications satellite, Telstar, and first privately sponsored space launch.

1985 ~ The Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior was sunk in Auckland Harbor by French agents.

1989 ~ Death of Mel Blanc, Voice Actor ( Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Beaky Buzzard, Tweety Bird, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, Barney Rubble, Mr. Spacely).

1997 ~ Scientists reported their DNA analysis findings which support the Out of Africa hypothesis of human evolution.

2002 ~ At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents was sold for $76.2 million.

2003 ~ Death of Lord Shawcross, U.K. chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.

2011 ~ After 168 years, the British tabloid News of the World published its last edition.

July 11th
 

1798 ~ The U.S. Marine Corps was re-created by an act of Congress.

1859 ~ Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" was published.

1899 ~ Birthday of E. B. White, American Writer. (Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, The Trumpet of the Swan.)

1914 ~ Babe Ruth made his major league debut with the Boston Red Sox.

1920 ~ Birthday of Yul Brynner, Russian-born actor.

1937 ~ Death of George Gershwin, American Composer.

1977 ~ The Gay News and its editor Denis Lemon were found guilty of blasphemous libel.

1994 ~ Death of Savannah, Porn Star.

1979 ~ Skylab deorbited.

1989 ~ Death of Sir Laurence Olivier, Actor.

July 12th
 

1536 ~ Death of Erasmus, Dutch Writer & Philosopher.

1690 ~ William of Orange's army won the Battle of the Boyne.

1730 ~ Birthday of Josiah Wedgwood, English Potter.

1773 ~ Death of Johann Joachim Quantz, German Flutist & Composer.

1862 ~ Medal of Honor authorized by the U.S. Congress.

1943~ Birthday of Christine McVie, British singer, musician, & songwriter (Fleetwood Mac).

1943 ~ Turning point of CITADEL (Battle of Kursk).

1962~ The Rolling Stones perform their first public concert.

1984 ~ Walter Mondale named Geraldine Ferraro his Vice Presidential running mate.

1990~ Russian republic president Boris Yeltsin resigned from the Communist Party.

July 13th
 

100 BC ~ Birthday of Julius Caesar, Soldier & Politician.

1837 ~ Queen Victoria moved into Buckingham Palace – the first monarch to live there.

1908 ~ Women first included in modern Olympic competition.

1923 ~ The first Hollywood Sign was dedicated. It read "HOLLYWOODLAND".

1940 ~ Birthday of Patrick Stewart, English actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation).

1955 ~ Ruth Ellis became the last woman in England to be executed.

1960 ~ John F. Kennedy won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in Los Angeles.

1973 ~ Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the Nixon tapes to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break in.

1977 ~ A 25-hour blackout hit New York City.

1985 ~ Live Aid, an international rock concert in London, Philadelphia, Moscow and Sydney, Australia, was held to raise money for Africa's starving people.

July 14th
 

1789 ~ Citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille. Generally recognized as the beginning of the French Revolution.

1798 ~ The Sedition Act made it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the U.S. government.

1862 ~ Birthday of Gustav Klimt, Austrian Painter & Graphic Artist.

1881 ~ Billy the Kid was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett.

1887 ~ Death of Alfred Krupp, German munitions manufacturer.

1912 ~ Birthday of Woody Guthrie, American folk singer.

1913 ~ Birthday of Gerald Ford, U.S. President.

1965 ~ Mariner 4 flyby of Mars took the first close-up photos of another planet.

2000 ~ A Florida jury ordered five major tobacco companies to pay smokers $145 billion in punitive damages. (The verdict was later overturned by the Florida Supreme Court.).

2007 ~ Russia withdrew from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.

July 15th
 

1099 ~ The Crusaders of the First Crusade took Jerusalem.

1606 ~ Birthday of Rembrandt Van Rijn, Dutch artist.

1799 ~ French Captain Pierre Bouchard found the Rosetta Stone.

1870 ~ Georgia became the last of the Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

1918 ~ WWI: Second Battle of the Marne began.

1926 ~ Birthday of Leopoldo Galtieri, Argentine Dictator.

1954 ~ First flight of the Boeing 707, the first American jet passenger airliner.

1995 ~ Bosnian Serbs force Muslims out of Srebrenica.

2002 ~ John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban", pleaded guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and possession of explosives during the commission of a felony.

2006 ~ Death of Robert H. Brooks, founder of Hooters of America.

July 16th
 

622 ~ Start of the Islamic calendar.

1872 ~ Birthday of Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who led the expedition which was the first to reach the South Pole.

1918 ~ At Ekaterinburg, Russia, Bolsheviks executed Czar Nicholas II and his family.

1945 ~ Allied leaders Winston Churchill, Harry Truman Josef Stalin meet at Potsdam.

1945 ~ The U.S. detonated the first nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1955 ~ The original Disneyland park opened.

1969 ~ Apollo 11 was launched from Cape Kennedy to become the first manned mission to land on the moon.

1980 ~ Birthday of Jesse Jane, Porn Actress.

1980 ~ Birthday of Justine Joli, Porn Actress.

1994 ~ Death of Julian Schwinger, American physicist, Nobel laureate.

July 17th
 

1790 ~ Death of Adam Smith, Scottish Economist.

1899 ~ Birthday of James Cagney, Actor.

1947 ~ Birthday of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (formerly Parker Bowles), former British royal mistress and now wife of Prince Charles.

1962 ~ Tha nuclear test shot Little Feller I became the last American atmospheric detonation at the Nevada Test Site.

1975 ~ An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.

1979 ~ Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza resigned and fled into exile in Miami.

1989 ~ First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.

2003 ~ Death of Dr. David Kelly, U.N. Weapons Inspector.

2005 ~ Death of Joe Vialls, Australian conspiracy theorist and internet journalist.

2005 ~ Death of Edward Heath, UK PM.

July 18th
 

1887 ~ Birthday of Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian Politician & Traitor.

1909 ~ Birthday of Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Diplomat & President.

1918 ~ Birthday of Nelson Mandela, former President of SA, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1993.

1922 ~ Birthday of Thomas Kuhn, Philosopher of Science.

1925 ~ Adolf Hitler’s "Mein Kampf" was published.

1927 ~ Birthday of Kurt Masur, Conductor.

1942 ~ The Messerschmitt Me-262 was test flown using only its jets for the first time.

1969 ~ After a party, Senator Ted Kennedy drove his car off a wooden bridge into a pond, and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, died.

1973 ~ Death of Jack Hawkins, English film actor.

2001 ~ In Baltimore, Maryland, a 60-car train derailment occurred in a tunnel, sparking a fire that lasted days and virtually shut down downtown.

2005 ~ Eric Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison for an abortion clinic bombing that killed an off-duty police officer.