Today in Your History — July
A look at the people, events and popular culture that shaped our lives
AARP Members Only Access, July 2022
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PHOTO BY: Corbis via Getty Images
July 31: Astronauts use Lunar Roving Vehicle (1971)
On July 31, 1971, Apollo 15’s David Scott and Jim Irwin became the first astronauts to use the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) to explore the surface of the moon. Think of the LRV as something of a space golf cart: It was lightweight and electric, designed to work in low gravity, with a range of about 55 miles and an operating speed of almost 10 mph. The so-called moon buggy allowed astronauts to venture farther from the landing site, and it carried such tools as the lunar rake, which could be used — quite like a litter box scoop! — to collect rocks. To give a sense of scale, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin traveled by foot and only covered an area smaller than a football field. By the Apollo 17 mission, Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt covered a distance of more than 22 miles. On that first joy ride, Scott and Irwin made an unscheduled stop on their way back to the lander to pick up a black lava rock; they knew that if they asked permission to stop, the mission managers would have said no, because the detour added on extra time. Instead, Scott made up a fake excuse about stopping to fix his seat belt, and the prized geologic sample came to be known as “Seat Belt Rock.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Lynn Pelham/Getty Images
July 30: Union leader Jimmy Hoffa disappears (1975)
One of America’s most controversial labor leaders, Jimmy Hoffa, served as the president of the Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1957 to 1971 — even while in prison for jury tampering, fraud and conspiracy. In December 1971, President Nixon commuted his sentence — under the condition that Hoffa didn’t engage in any union activities before 1980 — but Hoffa fought the ruling in court. In mid-July 1975, federal investigators discovered that someone had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the Teamsters’ pension fund, and on July 30, 1975, Hoffa set up a meeting with two mobsters — Detroit’s Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone and New Jersey’s Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano — at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan. But it never came to be: While the meeting was set for 2 p.m., Hoffa called his wife 15 minutes later to report that he had been stood up. And when he never returned home for dinner, a missing person’s report was filed. Hoffa was never seen or heard from again, and he was legally declared “presumed dead” in 1982. There have been many failed attempts to locate his body, including from a horse farm in Michigan, and there’s even a long-standing rumor that he was buried under the old New York Giants stadium. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images
July 29: Prince Charles marries Lady Diana (1981)
On the morning of July 29, 1981, some 600,000 royal watchers flooded the streets of London to catch a glimpse of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer on the day they tied the knot. After a horse-drawn carriage ride from Buckingham Palace, the couple got married inside St. Paul’s Cathedral, in front of 3,500 invited guests, with the 32-year-old groom wearing a naval commander uniform and the 20-year-old bride donning an instantly memorable gown designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel. Her dress was made of ivory taffeta and embroidered with sequins, and featured frilled antique lace and 10,000 pearls, with a bit of lace that once belonged to Queen Mary sewn inside. Her train stretched for 25 feet, while her tulle veil clocked in at 459 feet long. The Archbishop of Canterbury led the service, and both Charles and Diana made tiny flubs during their vows — she called him “Philip Charles” instead of “Charles Philip;” he referred to “thy good” instead of “my worldly goods.” “May the burdens we lay on them be matched by the love with which we support them in the years to come,” the archbishop said during his sermon. “However long they live, may they always know that when they pledged themselves to each other before the altar of God, they were surrounded and supported not by mere spectators, but by the sincere affection and active prayer of millions of friends.” Some 750 million people tuned in to watch the ceremony on television, making it the most watched event in history up to that point. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano
July 28: Pope says Mass for crowd of 3 million (2013)
To close out his first international trip after becoming pontiff, Pope Francis delivered Mass to an estimated crowd of 3 million followers on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in an event that coincided with the end of World Youth Day. Many of the pilgrims who came to see the new pope had camped out overnight in tents and sleeping bags, and it was one of the largest turnouts for a papal Mass in recent decades. In fact, it ranked as the greatest crowd to ever gather on Copacabana Beach, topping the 2 million who had gathered for that year’s New Year’s celebrations and the 1 million who had attended a 2006 Rolling Stones concert. Some in the media even dubbed the stretch of sand “Popacabana” during the festivities. Francis pitched his Mass firmly at the youth, calling on young Catholics to spread their faith “to the fringes of society, even to those who seem farthest away, most indifferent.” He continued: “The church needs you, your enthusiasm, your creativity and the joy that is so characteristic of you. A great apostle of Brazil [from the 16th century], José de Anchieta, set off on his mission when he was only 19 years old. Do you know what the best tool is for evangelizing the young?” he asked the crowd. “Another young person. This is the path for all of you to follow!” While the crowd of 3 million was undoubtedly impressive, it wasn’t the largest ever assembled to hear a pope speak: That record goes to a 1995 Mass delivered by Pope John Paul II to a crowd of 5 million in Manila, Philippines. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
July 27: Zsa Zsa Gabor goes to jail for 3 days (1990)
In June 1989, glamorous Hungarian movie star and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor was pulled over in Beverly Hills, California, in her $215,000 white Rolls-Royce Corniche, when motorcycle cop Paul Kramer noticed that her registration stickers were expired. After Kramer asked for her driver’s license and found that it was also expired, Gabor told him she was in a hurry and sped off. He followed her for about two blocks before she pulled over, and when she stepped out of the car, she slapped him in the face. The car was impounded, and Gabor was taken off to the Beverly Hills Police Department in handcuffs. “I didn’t do a damn thing,” she later said. “He bodily dragged me out of the car, then I hit him.” She also said of the officer: “This man, he’s not normal, or he’s on dope or something.” Gabor was fined $2,350 for assaulting Kramer, $352 for driving without a license and $235 for driving with a flask of Jack Daniels. Her future trial became something of a media circus. She told reporters: “In Nazi Hungary, they were fairer than here. Here they don’t kill you. They kill you with words.” She was ultimately ordered to pay fines and retribution totaling $12,937, perform 120 hours of community service, undergo a psychiatric exam and serve three days in jail. On July 27, 1990, at the age of 72, she arrived at the El Segundo jail to start her 72 hours in the slammer; for those who qualify for the weekend jail program, the rented cell and food cost $85 per day. “I looked around for a jail and thought El Segundo’s would be appropriate,” said her lawyer, Harrison Bull. “It costs about … the same rate as the Hilton nowadays.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Fotosearch/Getty Images
July 26: President Bush signs ADA (1990)
Throughout the 1980s, disability activists fought for their own version of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a single piece of legislation that would broadly protect people with disabilities. The movement had its most visible success story in March 1990, with the Capitol Crawl, when about 60 activists left behind their wheelchairs and other mobility aids to climb the steps of the U.S. Capitol in order to highlight the lack of accessibility throughout the country. Legislation made its way through Congress, eventually passing in the House without objection, and the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) was finally signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990. The legislation guarantees individuals with physical and mental disabilities equal opportunity in public accommodations, transportation, employment, government services and telecommunications. And the public-accommodation provisions were especially sweeping, demanding that facilities such as restaurants, theaters, parks and institutional buildings make necessary changes to allow access for all. Bush signed the legislation in a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, remarking, “Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” The Rev. Harold H. Wilke, a minister and social activist who had been born without arms, offered the invocation that day, stating that the ADA meant “the breaking of the chains which have held back millions of Americans with disabilities.” Wilke later accepted Bush’s signing pen with his toes. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Keystone/Getty Images
July 25: First 'test-tube baby' born in UK (1978)
On this date in 1978, the world’s first “test-tube baby,” Louise Joy Brown, was born by cesarean section at Oldham and District General Hospital in Manchester, England. She weighed in at 5 pounds, 12 ounces, and became the first person in history to have been conceived outside the human body. Brown’s parents, Lesley and John, had experienced infertility issues due to her blocked fallopian tubes, so doctors tried a then-radical procedure called in vitro fertilization (IVF), by which her mother’s egg and her father’s sperm were combined in a laboratory dish before doctors implanted the new embryo in her uterus. Brown’s birth became something of a media spectacle, with journalists flooding her English hometown from around the globe. Time magazine even dubbed the event “the most awaited birth in perhaps 2,000 years.” The procedure also kicked off debates about medical ethics. IVF, however, has become standard practice over the decades, with more than 8 million IVF babies born since. For her part, Brown prefers the term “IVF” over “test-tube baby” because, as she later told Time, “there weren’t any test tubes involved.” In fact, the glass jar where she started life went on display at the Science Museum in London to celebrate her 40th birthday, in 2018. These days, Brown is very aware of her place in medical history. “A few months ago, I was in the supermarket with my husband and sons, and I heard footsteps running up behind me,” she told Time. “It was a woman, and she had a 4-year-old — the same age as my son [in 2018] — and a tiny baby in a pram. She said that she’d always wanted to thank my mum and me because without us, she’d never have had those two. It makes you tear up.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Alessandro Trovati/AP Photo
July 24: Armstrong wins 7th Tour de France (2005)
On this date in 2005, American cyclist Lance Armstrong pedaled his way into the history books when he won his seventh consecutive Tour de France. It was a feat that was all the more impressive considering his past medical issues: In 1996, Armstrong had been diagnosed with testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs, but after successful surgery and chemotherapy, he went on to win his first Tour de France in 1999 — only the second American to do so, after Greg LeMond. After victory number seven, Armstrong announced his retirement, saying that he’d soon be on a beach in the south of France, “with a beer, having a blast.” And he addressed skeptics who suspected that the sport of cycling was rife with doping, telling reporters: “I’m sorry you don't believe in miracles. But this is a hell of a race. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I’ll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets — this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it.” But the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency later declared that there had been secrets to Armstrong’s success: He had used performance-enhancing drugs such as erythropoietin (EPO) and human growth hormone beginning in the late 1990s, and the Tour de France stripped him of all seven of his victories. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
July 23: Hale and Bopp find a comet (1995)
On the night of July 23, 1995, two men separately discovered a new comet at almost the exact same time as they trained their telescopes on the night sky. Thomas Bopp was an amateur astronomer who worked for a concrete supply company and discovered the comet during a “star party” in the Arizona desert, 90 miles south of Phoenix. Alan Hale, meanwhile, was a New Mexico–based astronomer and head of the Southwest Institute for Space Research, who happened upon the comet while scanning the star cluster M70. “As soon as I looked,” Hale told Time, “I saw a fuzzy object nearby. It was strange, because I’d looked at M70 a couple of weeks earlier and the object hadn’t been there.” Both men sent their discovery to the International Astronomical Union’s Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. Named for its discoverers, Comet Hale-Bopp was so unusually bright — 1,000 times brighter than Halley’s Comet — that it had been discovered at an astonishing 7.2 AU from the sun; for reference, an AU, or astronomical unit, is roughly 93 million miles, or the average distance between Earth and the sun, meaning that Hale-Bopp was past Jupiter when it was discovered. Unfortunately, the comet’s discovery led to tragedy: Thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed mass suicide with the hope of entering an alien spacecraft that they believed was hidden behind the comet. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: John Stillwell/PA Wire via AP Photo
July 22: Kate Middleton gives birth to George (2013)
On this date nine years ago, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (aka Prince William and Kate Middleton) welcomed their first child — and the heir to the British throne — when Middleton gave birth to an 8-pound, 6-ounce son at St. Mary’s Hospital in London. The infant instantly became third in line to the monarchy, after his grandfather, Prince Charles, and his father, and his birth was announced in a quite traditional fashion: The royal doctors signed an official notice of the birth, which was then driven to Buckingham Palace and displayed on a golden easel out front, for a crowd of cheering tourists. (Of course, a news release had already made the birth public knowledge, globally, before the piece of paper ever made its way to its destination.) Two days later — or, as The New York Times reported, “with a haste unusual in the royal family’s handling of such matters” — Will and Kate announced the name of their firstborn: George Alexander Louis, who could one day grow up to be King George VII. Before the announcement was made official, the name “George” had been the odds-on favorite with U.K. betting outfits like Ladbrokes, William Hill and Paddy Power. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CD: CBW/Alamy; Background: Unsplash
July 21: Guns N’ Roses releases ‘Appetite’ (1987)
Thirty-five years ago today, hard rock band Guns N’ Roses released its smash hit album Appetite for Destruction, which featured such world-conquering singles as “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Paradise City.” Robert Christgau wrote in his B- review of the album, “It’s a mug’s game to deny the technical facility claimed by one-upping crits and young victims of testosterone poisoning — not only does Axl cruise where other ‘hard rock’ singers strive, but he has a knack for believability, which in this genre is the most technical matter of all.” While critical response was mixed at the time, Axl and Co. had the last laugh: The album spent a ludicrous 256 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, peaking at number one for five weeks, and it went 18-times platinum by 2008. Though the band has still failed to win a Grammy, the album remains one of the highest-selling of all time, and Rolling Stone later ranked it number 62 on its list of the 500 greatest albums: “The biggest-selling debut album of the Eighties, Appetite hit the metal scene like an asteroid, bringing the grit and fury of Seventies rock back to a mainstream hard-rock scene that was starved for something real… GN’R left all other Eighties metal bands in the dust, and they knew it, too.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: MPI/Getty Images
July 20: 'Viking 1' lands on Mars (1976)
On July 20, 1976, Viking 1 made history as the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the surface of Mars, after traveling through space for almost a year — it had launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Aug. 20 of the previous year. It was trailed close behind by Viking 2, which launched on Sept. 9, 1975, and landed on the red planet 45 days after its predecessor. Number one’s landing date proved particularly special, because it fell on the seventh anniversary of the date Apollo 11’s lunar module touched down on the surface of the moon. The first Viking landed on the western slope of Chryse Planitia (or the Plains of Gold), before setting off on its many scientific missions. Most notably, the craft used its robotic arm to retrieve the first Martian soil samples, and while it failed to find any signs of life, it did go a long way toward helping astronomers figure out the basics of the planet’s geography: It’s a cold planet, it has volcanic soil, its atmosphere is thin and composed of carbon dioxide, and there’s evidence that Mars was once home to ancient rivers. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
July 19: Geraldine Ferraro wins nod for VP (1984)
On this date in 1984, at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York became the first woman to be nominated for vice president on a major party ticket, after Walter Mondale selected her as his running mate. Upon announcing her candidacy, Mondale said, “America is not just for some of us. History speaks to us today. Our founders said in the Constitution, ‘We the people’ — not just the rich, or men, or white, but all of us. Our message is that America is for everyone who works hard and contributes to our blessed country. That’s what my choice is about and that’s what Gerry’s about. The story of her road from the Ferraro home to this moment is really the story of a classic American dream.” At the convention, the daughter of Italian immigrants began her acceptance speech by proclaiming, “America is the land where dreams can come true for all of us.” She later continued, “By choosing a woman to run for our nation’s second-highest office, you sent a powerful signal to all Americans. There are no doors we cannot unlock. We will place no limits on achievement. If we can do this, we can do anything.” Despite the hopeful spirit in the air, Mondale only received 40.6 percent of the popular vote, to Ronald Reagan’s 58.6, and he ended up with only 13 electoral votes — the lowest number for a runner-up candidate since Alf Landon in 1936. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo
July 18: Nadia Comăneci receives a perfect (1976)
On the second day of the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, 14-year-old Romanian athlete Nadia Comăneci pulled off the previously unimaginable when she became the first gymnast to score a perfect 10.0. Before her stunning uneven bars routine, the feat seemed so unattainable, in fact, that her score led to a hilarious scoreboard mishap. Omega, the official timekeepers and scorers since 1932, had asked if it needed to update its scoreboards to accommodate four digits. When told it was unnecessary, the company left the old scoreboards, and when Comăneci’s score was displayed, it glitched and said “1.00.” At just 4-foot-11 and 86 pounds, she went on to earn six more perfect 10s and five medals — three golds, a silver and a bronze — during the 1976 Games. She also earned the nickname “Little Miss Perfect.” Comăneci later recalled, “People would say, ‘Wow, you are so young,’ and I thought, ‘No, I am not. I know what I am doing.’ I considered myself an adult in the gym, because I had been doing it for eight years already at that point. I was ancient in the sport.” Today, Comăneci keeps a painting of herself at the end of the 1976 floor routine in her house. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo
July 17: Disneyland opens in Anaheim (1955)
After only a year and a day of construction, Walt Disney’s revolutionary $17 million theme-park gambit was ready to open its doors to the public — or so the family-oriented behemoth thought. Built on 160 acres of former orange groves in Anaheim, California, Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, for what was intended to be an invitation-only “international press preview,” designed to work out the kinks before the official public opening the following day. Unfortunately, counterfeiters sold thousands of fake tickets, and some 28,000 fans rushed into the park on that fateful Sunday, causing one of the worst traffic jams in history on the Santa Ana Freeway. That first day was so comically disastrous, in fact, that employees started referring to it as “Black Sunday”: A plumbers strike meant there were no working water fountains available on the 100-degree day; women’s high heels began sinking into the melting asphalt; many of the rides didn’t open on time; and the Mark Twain Riverboat almost sank because of overcrowding. The Associated Press summed it up best: “Probably for the first time in his career, Disney disappointed thousands of youngsters.” Of course, Disneyland’s fate quickly turned around, and before the pandemic, the theme park welcomed 18.7 million visitors in 2019. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Arnaldo Magnani/Getty Images
July 16: John F. Kennedy Jr. dies in a crash (1999)
On the night of July 16, 1999, tragedy struck the Kennedy clan once again with the sudden death of the former president’s son, John F. Kennedy Jr. At 8:38 p.m., “America’s crown prince” took off from New Jersey’s Essex County airport in a single-engine Piper Saratoga II HP airplane that he was piloting. He was flying with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, and the plan was to drop Lauren off in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, before continuing on to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port to attend Rory Kennedy’s wedding. Before the plane reached the Vineyard, it plummeted from 2,200 feet to 1,100 in 14 seconds and then disappeared from radar. They were reported missing that night, kicking off a rescue operation, and on July 21, Navy divers recovered their bodies and the plane wreckage 116 feet below the Atlantic, eight miles off Martha’s Vineyard. The following year, the National Transportation Safety Board released a report saying that the crash likely occurred because Kennedy was an inexperienced pilot who didn’t maintain proper control of the plane during his descent and became disoriented. “Factors in the accident were haze and the dark night,” the board concluded. In a moving eulogy for his nephew,Sen.r Ted Kennedy said, “He was a boy who grew into a man with a zest for life and a love of adventure. He was a pied piper who brought us all along.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
July 15: Man murders Gianni Versace (1997)
The fashion world suffered a devastating loss on the morning of July 15, 1997, when spree killer Andrew Cunanan shot Italian designer Gianni Versace on the steps of his South Beach mansion as he was returning from a walk. “Gianni Versace, the man who brought rock, art, sexuality and brilliant color into contemporary fashion, was shot to death yesterday outside his home in Miami Beach,” wrote Amy M. Spindler in The New York Times. “He was 50. It is difficult to imagine another designer whose death would drain more life from the industry, an industry now driven by contemporary culture because Mr. Versace made it that way.” The 27-year-old murderer had been educated at a prestigious private school in La Jolla, California, and had a genius-level IQ of 147. Versace was the last of Cunanan’s five victims, whom he killed between April and July, and the murders landed him on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. On July 23, with authorities closing in on him, Cunanan committed suicide on a houseboat in Miami. The tragic tale later inspired the Ryan Murphy–produced American Crime Story miniseries The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which starred Edgar Ramírez as Versace and Darren Criss as Cunanan and picked up seven Emmys. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo/Julia Malakie
July 14: Boston ends race-based busing (1999)
Due to the “white flight” to the suburbs in the middle of the 20th century, public schools in 1970s Boston were widely segregated — not by law but as a result of geographic factors. Schools in certain areas remained all white; others all Black. In 1974, U.S. District Judge Arthur Garrity instituted a policy of race-based busing, which would desegregate the district by transporting students to schools outside the neighborhoods in which they lived. The system was met with intense opposition in the seemingly liberal city, as riots broke out and white parents threw eggs, bricks, bottles and stones at buses filled with Black children. The National Guard was even called in to defend the order. The desegregation plan remained in place for 25 years, until July 14, 1999, when the Boston School Committee voted to remove race as a deciding factor in assigning students to schools. “It is important to note that this is not an issue of returning to neighborhood schools,” wrote Boston Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Payzant in a memo to the School Committee. “That can happen in an equitable way only when new quality schools are built in neighborhoods that now have an insufficient number of schools to serve resident school age children․” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bryan Alpert/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
July 13: A massive blackout hits New York City (1977)
Forty-five years ago today, at around 9:30 p.m. on July 13, 1977, New York City plunged into darkness with a massive blackout that would last for 25 hours. A lightning storm in Westchester County, just north of the city, had cut off five major power transmission lines earlier that night, and when a Con Edison operater failed to respond quickly enough, the system completely shut down. It was the so-called Summer of Sam, when a serial killer was in the midst of his reign of terror, and the city was already on edge. With the streets shrouded in pitch blackness, a wave of crime spread over the Big Apple, and looting and arson were reported throughout the city. “We’ve seen our citizens subjected to violence, vandalism, theft and discomfort,” Mayor Abe Beame said at a press conference. “The blackout has threatened our safety and has seriously impacted our economy. We’ve been needlessly subjected to a night of terror in many communities that have been wantonly looted and burned. The costs, when finally tallied, will be enormous.” By the time the lights came back on, the New York Police Department had made 3,800 arrests, and The New York Times reported later that month that the city had endured some $135 million to $150 million in theft and property damage. Disco-soul band the Trammps memorialized the event in their song “The Night the Lights Went Out”: “Where were you when the lights went out in New York City? / Don’t you know that I was making love?” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
July 12: 'Family Feud' airs its first episode (1976)
One of America’s most-beloved game shows, Family Feud, has had three incarnations over the years: first, running from 1976 to 1985; then, in a revived version, from 1988 to 1995; and finally, in its current incarnation, which premiered in 1999. That original version hit the airwaves on July 12, 1976, with touchy-feely British-born host Richard Dawson, whom audiences might have known from his roles on Hogan’s Heroes or his position as a popular panelist on Match Game. Family Feud almost looked very different. Before Dawson was hired, William Shatner was seriously considered for the role. In that premiere episode, in the summer of 1976, Dawson took the stage to uproarious cheers, and he started the series off with his trademark wit, quipping, “Wow, I haven’t felt that excited since I got the oil-drilling rights to Jack Lord’s hair.” The Moseley and Abramowitz families faced off, with the Moseleys coming out on top; they took home $1,166. Dawson attracted some skepticism for his trademark move of kissing the female players, but he saw it as something of a political act, saying in a 2010 interview with the Television Academy, “It’s very important for me that on Family Feud I could kiss all people… I kissed Black women daily and nightly on Family Feud for 11 years, and the world didn’t come to an end, did it?” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images
July 11: Skylab crashes in Western Australia (1979)
America’s first space station, Skylab, launched into orbit on May 14, 1973, and it later hosted three crews of astronauts, who studied subjects such as the effects of space on the human body. On their final mission in 1974, the astronauts boosted the station into a higher orbit, with the hopes that it would be able to remain in space until 1983; NASA planned to return to it at that point using its new space shuttle program to either send it even higher into orbit or safely bring it back down into the Pacific Ocean. The truth of the matter is that the agency hadn’t planned precisely how to get Skylab back down to Earth without causing major destruction. Unfortunately, the wilds of outer space had different plans: Solar activity increased, ruining NASA’s goals and ensuring that Skylab would come tumbling back through Earth’s atmosphere at some point in mid-1979. On July 11 of that year, as Skylab was making its 34,981st orbit around the planet, Mission Control at Houston’s Johnson Space Center fired the booster rockets to guide it away from highly populated areas. That day, it reentered the atmosphere, broke up into tiny pieces and scattered across the southeastern Indian Ocean and southern Western Australia. Luckily, nobody was injured, and one Australian teenager even made a quick buck off the crash landing: The San Francisco Examiner had offered a $10,000 reward to the first person who delivered a piece of debris to its offices, and 17-year-old Stan Thornton grabbed some burnt chunks and flew to the U.S. to claim his prize. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Wojtek Laski/Getty Images
July 10: Yeltsin sworn in as Russian president (1991)
On June 12, 1991, the reformer and ex-Communist Boris Yeltsin swept to victory as the Russian president, in what would be the first (and many say last) free election in Russia’s 1,000-year history. As an Independent, Yeltsin received 58.6 percent of the vote; his closest competitor, the Communist Nikolai Ryzhkov, picked up a measly 17.2 percent. A month later, on July 10, Yeltsin was sworn in at the Kremlin, in a dramatic inauguration ceremony that replaced the austerity of the Soviet Union with religious pomp and prerevolutionary iconography. “Great Russia is rising from its knees,” Yeltsin said. “We will turn it into a prosperous, democratic, peaceful, genuinely sovereign, law-abiding state.” Alexei II, patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, blessed Yeltsin — an atheist — and called on him to usher in a spiritual rebirth across the country. The patriarch shared the front row with Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders, plus representatives from the various multinational regions of the Russian federation. “The president is no god, nor a new monarch, nor a miracle worker,” said Yeltsin, who frequently seemed on the verge of tears during his address. “He is an ordinary citizen in whom is vested a great responsibility for the destiny of Russia and his compatriots.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
July 9: The Grateful Dead plays last concert (1995)
On July 9, 1995, the Grateful Dead — that beloved psychedelic rock band known for their loose and improvisational live sets — played one of their final shows, at Chicago’s Soldier Field. Exactly one month later, on Aug. 9, their charismatic front man, Jerry Garcia, would die in his sleep at a residential drug treatment center in California, at the age of 53. According to official counts, the Soldier Field set was their 2,314th concert, and they finished out the night with a medley of “Black Muddy River” and “Box of Rain.” Patrick Russell of the live music magazine Relix was on hand for the band’s final two shows, and he wrote presciently at the time: “Then the evening/stand/tour culminated in one of the best fireworks displays in ages. After all we had gone through this tour, the band sent us home in style. It was as if they were saying, ‘You may have just witnessed the last show of our final summer tour. If so, take this with you and open it up now, and always remember.’ ” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: John Raoux/AP Photo
July 8: NASA launches final shuttle mission (2011)
Thirty years after the first space shuttle mission in 1981, NASA officially retired the program with its 135th launch, mission STS-135, when Atlantis blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 8, 2011. Among those in attendance that day were Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, 14 members of Congress, Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera, and singers Gloria Estefan, Jimmy Buffett, Diana Krall and Alan Parsons. “The space shuttle spreads its wings one final time for the start of a sentimental journey into history,” said NASA launch commentator Rob Navias, after the shuttle lifted off at 11:29 a.m. ET. The mission’s main objective was to carry some 8,000 pounds of supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station. And after 12 days, 18 hours and 28 minutes, Atlantis completed its final mission with a smooth landing back on Earth. A week into the journey, President Barack Obama made a very long-distance call to the ISS to congratulate the international crew: “We're all watching as the 10 of you work together as a team to conduct space walks and manage experiments, and all the things that are necessary to keep the space station humming. Your example, I think, means so much — not just to your fellow Americans but also to your fellow citizens on Earth. The space program has always embodied our sense of adventure and exploration and courage, as you guys work in a really harsh environment.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images
July 7: Sandra Day O’Connor nomination plans (1981)
On this date in 1981, President Ronald Reagan announced his intention to nominate Sandra Day O’Connor, of the Arizona Court of Appeals, to become the first female Supreme Court justice, replacing the retiring Justice Potter Stewart. “She is truly a person for all seasons, possessing those unique qualities of temperament, fairness, intellectual capacity and devotion to the public good which have characterized the 101 brethren who have preceded her,” said Reagan, who had made a campaign promise to nominate a female judge. “I commend her to you, and I urge the Senate's swift bipartisan confirmation, so that as soon as possible, she may take her seat on the court and her place in history.” The day before the announcement, Reagan had written in his personal diary: “Called Judge O’Connor and told her she was my nominee for Supreme Court. Already the flak is starting, and from my own supporters. Right-to-life people say she is pro-abortion. She declares abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she’ll make a good justice.” Despite complaints from conservative hardliners, who predicted that she wouldn’t overturn Roe v. Wade, Reagan made the nomination official on Aug. 19, and O’Connor sailed through confirmation hearings with a final vote of 99-0. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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July 6: Serena Williams wins Wimbledon title (2002)
On this date 20 years ago, a 20-year-old Serena Williams won her first Wimbledon ladies’ singles championship, and she did so by besting a fierce opponent: her older sister Venus, who was 22 at the time and the reigning two-time champ. It was the first time in the tournament’s then 118-year history that two members of the same family had faced off. And at the trophy ceremony, Venus leaned over to Serena to whisper, “You have to curtsy. Did you know that?” In her postgame interview, Serena said, “I just wanted Wimbledon. I wanted to become a member of so much prestige, so much history. I want to be a part of history.” With her Wimbledon victory, Serena ascended to number 1, knocking her sister off the throne. Over the years, Venus has won five Wimbledon titles, while Serena has bested her with seven, most recently in 2016 — as part of her 23 total Grand Slam singles championships. She’s still on the hunt to beat Margaret Court’s record-setting 24 singles titles. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo
July 5: Arthur Ashe wins Wimbledon title (1975)
On this date in 1975, Arthur Ashe became the first Black man to win at Wimbledon, and he did so as quite an underdog. At 31, Ashe — whose previous Wimbledon singles tennis championship appearances included semifinal losses in 1968 and 1969 — defeated the heavily favored 22-year-old phenom Jimmy Connors, who also happened to be the reigning Wimbledon champ. Before the match even started, Ashe was prepared to get into his opponent’s head: Connors had famously refused to join the U.S. Davis Cup team, so Ashe arrived at the match in a blue warm-up jacket emblazoned with a red “USA” in order to psych him out. His strategy during the games was to intentionally hit “junk” at Connors to “[take] the pace off the ball and [give] the slugger little to bang at,” wrote Fred Tupper in The New York Times. After winning the first two sets by 6-1 each, Ashe faltered in the third (losing 5-7), but then he took it home with a 6-4 victory in the fourth set. “I played well,” Ashe said after the match. “I was confident.” With his win, Ashe joined Althea Gibson as only the second African American player to win at Wimbledon. And to this day, he remains the only Black man to have pulled off a singles victory at the legendary British tournament. Ashe later said, “I had the strangest feeling that I couldn’t lose.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Jeff Goode/Toronto Star via Getty Images
July 4: The US celebrates its bicentennial (1976)
America had patriotic fever in the summer of 1976, which marked 200 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Celebrations took place across the country, with President Gerald R. Ford spending the big day darting around the nation: to Valley Forge, to commemorate the end of the Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage; to Philadelphia, to sign a declaration reaffirming America’s commitment to the original ideals of the Founding Fathers; to New York, to watch a parade of tall ships and warships that had assembled from around the world; and finally back to D.C., to watch fireworks from the White House balcony. Later that week, the president and first lady hosted a state dinner for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, during which the long-reigning monarch — the great-great-great-granddaughter of King George III, from whom America had declared its independence — gave the American people a 6.5-ton Bicentennial Bell (cast in the Whitechapel Foundry in London, where the original Liberty Bell was cast in 1752, according to The New York Times). Ford saw the celebration as a return to optimism after the national-confidence-shaking events of the Vietnam War and Watergate, later writing in his 1979 autobiography A Time to Heal: “Rarely in the history of the world had so many people turned out so spontaneously to express the love they felt for their country. Not a single incident marred our festival. The nation’s wounds had healed. We had regained our pride and rediscovered our faith, and in doing so, we had laid the foundation for a future that had to be filled with hope.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
July 3: Jim Morrison dies in Paris at age 27 (1971)
On this date in 1971, Doors front man Jim Morrison was found dead in the bathtub of his Paris apartment by his girlfriend, Pamela Courson. He was 27 years old, which immediately qualified him for the tragic 27 Club — whose other famous members would include Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin (both 1970), Kurt Cobain (1994) and Amy Winehouse (2011). Because the French police found no signs of foul play, they didn’t conduct an autopsy, and Morrison’s cause of death was officially listed as heart failure. That didn’t stop friends and fans from suggesting alternatives or positing conspiracy theories. And in 2007, Morrison’s friend Sam Bernett, a nightclub manager and former New York Times journalist, published a book called The End: Jim Morrison, in which he wrote that the shock rocker died of a heroin overdose in the Left Bank nightclub Rock ’n’ Roll Circus and his body was then moved back to his apartment in a massive cover-up. “I want to get rid of my heavy load,” Bernett told Rolling Stone about the publication of the book. “At least everything is now out there to be discussed. I’ve said what I have to say.” Morrison was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery, and his grave has become a major tourist attraction for visitors to Paris. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Getty Images
July 2: Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act (1964)
On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most consequential piece of civil rights legislation since the Reconstruction era a century before. “My fellow citizens, we have come now to a time of testing,” LBJ said. “We must not fail. Let us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.” The legislation integrated schools and other public facilities, made employment discrimination illegal and prohibited discrimination in public spaces based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. In a symbolic gesture, Johnson signed the law with at least 75 pens, which he then distributed to members of Congress who had supported the legislation and to civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., who was on hand that day alongside Ralph Abernathy and John Lewis. The Civil Rights Act would have lasting consequences on the political allegiance of the Southern states, though the Texas Democrat was aware of the potential impact: “I know the risks are great, and we might lose the South, but those sorts of states may be lost anyway,” the president said. Over the years, the Civil Rights Act was expanded to provide protection for the elderly and the disabled, as well as for female college athletes, and it led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Kimimasa Mayama/Pool Photo via AP
July 1: Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule (1997)
During the first Opium War of the 1840s, Britain officially took control of the Chinese island of Hong Kong, transforming it into an international trading center. And in 1898, the imperial power leased the territory for another 99 years. In 1984, the two nations signed an agreement formalizing the eventual territorial handover in 1997 — as long as China pledged to allow capitalism to continue in Hong Kong. Shortly after midnight on July 1, 1997, the official handover occurred, in a ceremony at the convention center attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prince Charles, Chinese President Jiang Zemin and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. “Seconds after British soldiers lowered the Union Jack for the last time to the strains of “God Save the Queen,” China’s red banner was raised, marking the transfer of this free-wheeling capitalist territory to Communist control,” The New York Times reported back then. The Chinese president addressed the assembled parties in Mandarin (even though Hong Kong is a Cantonese-speaking territory): “The return of Hong Kong to the motherland after a century of vicissitudes indicates that from now on, our Hong Kong compatriots have become true masters of this Chinese land, and that Hong Kong has now entered a new era of development.” Change was swift, with the elected legislature immediately replaced by a body of lawmakers appointed by Beijing. The rights to protest and freedom of association were curbed, and Hong Kongers could no longer discuss topics such as the independence of Taiwan or Tibet. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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