This Week in History

July 20

1807: The first internal combustion engine was patented in France.

1903: Ford Motor Co. shipped its first car.

1969: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. Upon placing his foot on the lunar surface, Armstrong declared: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

1977: The Central Intelligence Agency released documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind-control experiments with project MKULTRA.

1990: Violinist Erich Gruenberg’s Stradivarius violin was stolen as he was loading his luggage into a friend’s car at Los Angeles International Airport. (It was recovered in April 1999 in Honduras.)

July 21

1873: The Jesse James gang pulled off the first successful train robbery in the Old West.

1925: High school biology teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution in class in Dayton, Tenn., and fined $100.

2007: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the fastest-selling novel ever, was published. It sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours of its release.

2011: NASA’s Space Shuttle program ended with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135. This became the first time since 1961 that the United States had no means to launch astronauts into space.

July 22

1942: The U.S. government ordered gasoline rationing for civilians to support the war effort.
2019: NFL Dallas Cowboys named most valuable sports team in the world worth $5 billion, MLB New York Yankees 2nd at $4.6 billion, Real Madrid 3rd with $4.2 billion according to Forbes.

July 23

1829: William Austin Burt of Chicago patented the typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.

1904: The ice cream cone was invented at the World’s Fair in St. Louis.

1926: Fox Film bought the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film.

1962: Telstar relayed the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.

2019: BHP becomes the first mining company to tackle pollution, says it will invest $400 million to reduce emissions.

July 24

1948: Marc Racicot, former Montana governor, former head of the Republican National Committee and one-time advisor to President George W. Bush, was born in Thompson Falls, Mont. His family moved to Libby, Mont., when he was age 4. He graduated from Libby High School in 1966.

2018: First bison born in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, in 140 years, after being reintroduced.
2019: Facebook agrees to pay $5 billion fine, largest ever for violating consumer privacy, to the US Federal Trade Commission.

July 25

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.
2017: Sperm counts have halved in last 40 years says research published in “Human Reproduction Update” journal.
2018: Liquid lake found on Mars under its South Pole by European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter reported in “Science”.

July 26

1775: Benjamin Franklin became the first postmaster general.

1908: The Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation) opened.
1946: Aloha Airlines began service from Honolulu International Airport.
1947: President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, creating the Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. National Security Council. President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 desegregating the U.S. military.
1951: Walt Disney’s 13th animated film, Alice in Wonderland, premiered in London, England.
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.
2017: 3 live king cobras reported found inside potato chip cans by customs officials in Los Angeles.
2018: Observation of a black hole by The Very Large Telescope in Chile proves Albert Einstein‘s prediction of “gravitational redshift”, published in “Journal Astronomy & Astrophysics”.

ON THIS DAY… JULY 20 – JULY 26

July 20- NATIONAL LOLLIPOP DAY
People in the Midwest call lollipops suckers but the go by other names as well-lolly, or sticky pop.

July 21- COMIC CON DAY
Comic-Con not only has comics but also has other related pop culture entertainment forms such as gaming, movies, and T.V. shows. 

July 22- NATIONAL
HAMMOCK DAY
Today the hammock is often seen as a

July 23- SPRINKLE DAY
Sprinkles are used for many things across the world, the most common of which probably is topping ice cream. 

July 24- NATIONAL TEQUILA DAY
Is there any better way to enjoy some blue agave juice than bottoms up?

July 25- CAROUSEL DAY This holiday was created by the National Carousel Association as a way to mark the registration of the first patent for a carousel design in 1871.

July 26 -AUNTIE’S DAY
This day is to commemorate and celebrate the relationship between aunts and their nephews and nieces.