July 25
1861: The United States Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, stating that the Civil War was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.
War I (died 1918).
1920: The first trans-Atlantic two-way radio broadcast took place.
1946: Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis staged their first show as a comedy team at Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey,
1965: Bob Dylan ‘went electric’ as he plugged in at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music. His performance was booed by a large number of spectators.
1976: Viking 1 took the famous photo of the “Face on Mars.”
1978: Louise Brown, the world’s first “test tube baby,” was born.
2010: Wikileaks published classified documents about the war in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history.
July 26
1775: Benjamin Franklin became the first postmaster general.
1788: New York ratified the U.S. Constitution and became the 11th state.
1803: The Surrey Iron Railway, the world’s first public railway, opened in south London, England.
1903: Horatio Nelson and Sewell Crocker completed the first automobile trip across the United States. The journey from San Francisco to New York took 63½ days in a 1903 Winton.
1945: The Labour Party won the United Kingdom general election of July 5 by a landslide, removing Winston Churchill from power. The Potsdam Declaration was signed in Potsdam, Germany, by the United States, United Kingdom and Nationalist China. This ultimatum stated that, if Japan did not surrender, it would face “prompt and utter destruction.” The US Navy cruiser USS Indianapolis arrived at Tinian in the Mariana Islands with parts of the warhead for the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
1946: Aloha Airlines began service from Honolulu International Airport.
1951: Walt Disney’s 13th animated film, Alice in Wonderland, premiered in London, England.
1955: Theater director Margo Jones was killed in Dallas, Texas, by exposure to carbon tetrachloride fumes from her newly cleaned carpet.
1963: Syncom 2, the world’s first geosynchronous satellite, was launched from Cape Canaveral.
1989: A federal grand jury indicted Cornell University student Robert T. Morris Jr. for releasing the ‘Morris worm.’ He became the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
July 27
1789: The first U.S. federal government agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs, was established. (It was later renamed the Department of State.)
1866: The first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable was successfully laid, from Valentia Island, Ireland, to Heart’s Content, Newfoundland.
1919: The Chicago Race Riot erupted after a racial incident occurred on a South Side beach, leading to 38 fatalities and 537 injuries over a five-day period.
1921: Researchers at the University of Toronto led by biochemist Frederick Banting proved that the hormone insulin regulates blood sugar.
1974: At the height of the Watergate scandal, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to recommend the first article of impeachment (for obstruction of justice) against President Richard Nixon.
2016: Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be nominated to run for president by a major political party, at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pa.
July 28
1750: Johan Sebastian Bach died at age 65.
1866: At the age of 18, sculptor Vinnie Ream became the first and youngest female artist to receive a commission from the U.S. government for a statue (of Abraham Lincoln, now displayed in the U.S. Capitol rotunda).
1896: The city of Miami, Florida, was incorporated.
July 29
1948: After a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, opened in London.
1958: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
1959: Hawaii held its first election for U.S. Congress as a state.
1984: Brigitta Claudia Fredenhagen, 25, of Basel, Switzerland, was killed and mostly eaten by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park.
July 30
762: The city of Baghdad (in modern-day Iraq) was founded.
1932: Walt Disney’s cartoon short Flowers and Trees premiered. It was the first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first Academy Award-winning cartoon short.
1956: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a joint resolution of Congress, authorizing In God We Trust as the U.S. national motto.
2002: Canada recalled all of its troops from Afghanistan.
2003: The last ‘old style’ Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line in Mexico.
July 31
781: Mount Fuji erupted for the first time in recorded history.
1790: The first U.S. patent was issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
1945: Born this day: musician Gary Lewis (Gary Lewis & the Playboys), and 68th governor of Massachusetts, William Weld.
1961: At Fenway Park in Boston, Mass., the first All-Star Game tie in Major League Baseball history occurred when the game was stopped in the ninth inning because of rain.
1964: Ranger 7 sent back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
1969: German pop singer Alexandra (“Those Were the Days My Friend”) died in a car wreck in Tellingstedt, Holstein, Germany, at age 27.
1970: The British Royal Navy ceased rationing rum to its sailors.
1989: Born this day: actors Alexis Knapp (Project X, Pitch Perfect), Joey Richter (A Very Potter Musical), Jessica Williams (The Daily Show), and Zelda Williams (House of D).
2012: Michael Phelps broke the record set in 1964 by Larisa Latynina for the greatest number of medals won at the Olympics.