Today in Your History
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: 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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AP Photo/Ted S.Warren, File
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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