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Ray’s This Day in History – July 26
This is Ray Mossholder at the headquarters of Reach More Now in Fort Worth, Texas. We are about to explore the major events that happened in America and the world on this date – July 26…..
JULY 26, 1775 : U.S. POSTAL SYSTEM ESTABLISHED
On this day in 1775, the U.S. postal system is established by the Second Continental Congress, with Benjamin Franklin as its first postmaster general. Franklin (1706-1790) put in place the foundation for many aspects of today’s mail system.
During early colonial times in the 1600s, few American colonists needed to send mail to each other; it was more likely that their correspondence was with letter writers in Britain. Mail deliveries from across the Atlantic were sporadic and could take many months to arrive.
There were no post offices in the colonies, so mail was typically left at inns and taverns. In 1753, Benjamin Franklin, who had been postmaster of Philadelphia, became one of two joint postmasters general for the colonies. He made numerous improvements to the mail system, including setting up new, more efficient colonial routes and cutting delivery time in half between Philadelphia and New York by having the weekly mail wagon travel both day and night via relay teams. Franklin also debuted the first rate chart, which standardized delivery costs based on distance and weight.
In 1774, the British fired Franklin from his postmaster job because of his revolutionary activities. However, the following year, he was appointed postmaster general of the United Colonies by the Continental Congress. Franklin held the job until late in 1776, when he was sent to France as a diplomat. He left a vastly improved mail system, with routes from Florida to Maine and regular service between the colonies and Britain.
President George Washington appointed Samuel Osgood, a former Massachusetts congressman, as the first postmaster general of the American nation under the new U.S. constitution in 1789. At the time, there were approximately 75 post offices in the country.
Today, the United States has over 40,000 post offices and the postal service delivers 212 billion pieces of mail each year to over 144 million homes and businesses
July 26, 1791 – Composer Franz Xaver Mozart was born. He was one of the most gifted symphony, opera, light opera, composers who has ever lived.
Moviegoers may believe they know who Mozart was because they have seen the outstanding classic movie Amadeus. I can only tell you don’t believe everything you see. To really get a true story of his life, check Mozart out on Wikipedia.
JULY 26, 1797 : JOHN QUINCY ADAMS MARRIES LOUISA JOHNSON
On this day in 1797, future President John Quincy Adams, the son of second President John Adams, marries Louisa Johnson in London, England. Louisa was–and remains– the only foreign-born first lady of the United States.
Louisa was intelligent and a skilled writer and musician, but suffered all her life from nervous disorders that caused extreme fatigue and fainting. Her family moved back to England in 1784 and, in 1795, she met a young American diplomat named John Quincy Adams. The couple were engaged a year later.
John and Louisa lived in Europe until 1800, when the senior Adams lost his second presidential bid to Thomas Jefferson and John was called home. At first, John’s mother, the former first lady Abigail Adams, considered her daughter-in-law frail and unequal to the task of being a public servant’s wife. Early in her marriage, Louisa endured Abigail’s meddling in John’s political career as well as in the raising of her grandchildren.
Louisa and John went back to Europe in 1807, where he served in diplomatic posts in Russia, Belgium and England until 1817, when they again returned to America. Soon after, President James Monroe appointed Quincy Adams secretary of state, a position he held until 1824, when he ran for president. In the subsequent presidential election, a tie between Quincy Adams and Democrat Andrew Jackson put the deciding vote in the House of Representatives. The House chose Adams, who went on to serve one term from 1825 to 1829.
Although Louisa supported her husband’s political career, she hated the demands placed on her as first lady and never considered the White House a real home. She blamed public life for the disgraces that beset her family. First, their son George became addicted to opium and sired a child out of wedlock. Their son John was kicked out of Harvard University, and a third son, Charles, was caught soliciting prostitutes. After John and Louisa left the White House, George committed suicide.
On a happier note, in 1828, their son John married Louisa’s niece Mary Catherine in the first White House wedding ceremony for the son of a president.
As a result of domestic stress and what she saw as her husband’s emotional disinterest, Louisa felt increasingly estranged from her husband during the presidency. During summers apart she threw herself into writing poetry and plays and became passionate about women’s rights. Still, she remained supportive of her husband’s career, and when he returned to Congress in 1831, she helped him organize his legal fight to end slavery.
After John Quincy Adams suffered a stroke on the floor of the House of Representatives on February 21, 1848, Louisa stayed by his side until he passed away two days later. She herself suffered a stroke the next year and died in 1852.
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE was dying. He had become ill on the sixth of July, and on this day, 26 July 1833, he had only three days left in this world. That evening friends brought him good news: a bill for the abolition of slavery had passed its second reading in Parliament. This assured its passage. Wilberforce explained “Thank God, that I should have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give twenty millions sterling for the abolition of slavery!” For four decades, he had fought hard to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire until his retirement in 1825.
Wilberforce had not always been an opponent of slavery. In his youth, he was a frivolous man given to partying. His attitude changed in 1784 after he won the election in Yorkshire and he went with his sister for a few weeks to the Riviera for her health. His friend Isaac Milner rode with him. Milner, who had become an evangelical Christian, urged Wilberforce to commit his life to Christ.
Wilberforce had always thought of himself as a Christian. But after speaking with Milner, he realized he was not. He knew he needed to commit himself totally to Christ, but he struggled to do so. During this period, he read Philip Doddridge’s The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. This described a faith deeper than anything he had been taught. Finally, he yielded.
Conversion precipitated a crisis of conscience in him. He began to doubt if it was proper for him to hold a seat in Parliament. He confided his concern to his good friend Prime Minister William Pitt. Pitt urged Wilberforce to keep his seat. He needed his vote. Still doubtful, Wilberforce unburdened his soul to John Newton. Newton is best remembered as the author of the hymn “Amazing Grace”. Had converted to Christianity while a blasphemous sailor and slave trader and afterward became a Church of England rector. Like Pitt, he counseled Wilberforce to remain in Parliament and to use his seat to champion good causes.
Friends pointed to slavery as the issue Wilberforce should tackle. Pitt agreed. Believing this was God’s leading, Wilberforce took up the anti-slavery cause. A week before his own death in 1791, evangelical leader John Wesley wrote to Wilberforce urging him, “Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.”
Slavery was by no means the only issue Wilberforce took on. With influential and wealthy friends, he championed a number of moral and social causes. Among these were education of the common people, support of Bible societies and orphanages, creation of Sunday schools, and the emancipation of chimney sweeps. He also wrote Real Christianity, a book that called followers of Christ to “boldly assert the cause of Christ in an age when so many, who bear the name of Christians, are ashamed of Him.”
Through these endeavors, Wilberforce and his friends transformed England for the better. However, the abolition of slavery remains their greatest achievement to this day.
| 1856 | The birthday of George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright who wrote Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, and one of the plays I was in at Pepperdine College – You Never Can Tell.Shaw was a socialist who turned communist after going to Russia and meeting Joseph Stalin. He was a critic, playwright, and died in 1950 at the age of 94.. |
JULY 26, 1878 : OFFICER WYATT EARP FATALLY SHOOTS A DRUNKEN COWBOY BY MISTAKE
Attempting to preserve the peace in Dodge City, Assistant Marshal Wyatt Earp trades shots with a band of drunken cowboys, fatally wounding one of them.
Although he ended up on the wrong side of the law later in life, as a young man Wyatt Earp’s most consistent occupation was as a lawman. The third of the five brothers in the notorious Earp clan, Wyatt was by far the most famous. He left his family’s home in California in 1864 and bounced around the west working odd jobs until he landed a position as town constable in Lamar, Missouri.
In 1871, the tragic death of his wife and baby daughter in childbirth left him despondent, and he returned to roaming the West. At one point, he even became a horse thief.
After several rough years, Wyatt got his life back on track. In 1873, he began work as a lawman in the rowdy cow town of Wichita, Kansas. He wore out his welcome three years later, however, after losing his temper and beating up a prominent citizen for insulting one of Wyatt’s friends. He promptly relocated to Dodge City, Kansas, an even rougher town than Wichita. The Dodge City leaders appreciated Wyatt’s experience in makeshift frontier justice and quickly appointed him an assistant marshal.
During the three years Wyatt was a lawman in Dodge City, he generally dealt with troublemakers with his formidable fists or by clobbering them over the head with his pistol, and only resorted to firing his gun during one incident. In the early morning hours of this day in 1878, a small group of drunken cowboys began shooting their guns into the air. Wyatt and another officer came running and attempted to disarm the cowboys peacefully.
Had they been sober, the cowboys probably would have cooperated. The mixture of alcohol and ready guns was dangerous, though, and several of the cowboys drew their pistols and shot at the lawmen. Wyatt and his partner returned the fire, and Wyatt wounded a young Texan named George Hoy in the arm. When the cowboys tried to ride off, Hoy fell from his saddle. The wound became infected, and Hoy died a month later. He was the only man Wyatt killed during his entire time in Dodge City.
In the years to come, Wyatt continued to work sporadically in law enforcement around the West. Following the 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Corral, however, Wyatt’s desire for revenge led him to commit several killings of highly questionable legality. After that, he never wore a badge again.
JULY 26, 1908 : FBI FOUNDED
On July 26, 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is born when U.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte orders a group of newly hired federal investigators to report to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch of the Department of Justice. One year later, the Office of the Chief Examiner was renamed the Bureau of Investigation, and in 1935 it became the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
When the Department of Justice was created in 1870 to enforce federal law and coordinate judicial policy, it had no permanent investigators on its staff. At first, it hired private detectives when it needed federal crimes investigated and later rented out investigators from other federal agencies, such as the Secret Service, which was created by the Department of the Treasury in 1865 to investigate counterfeiting. In the early part of the 20th century, the attorney general was authorized to hire a few permanent investigators, and the Office of the Chief Examiner, which consisted mostly of accountants, was created to review financial transactions of the federal courts.
Seeking to form an independent and more efficient investigative arm, in 1908 the Department of Justice hired 10 former Secret Service employees to join an expanded Office of the Chief Examiner. The date when these agents reported to duty–July 26, 1908–is celebrated as the birth of the FBI. By March 1909, the force included 34 agents, and Attorney General George Wickersham, Bonaparte’s successor, renamed it the Bureau of Investigation.
The federal government used the bureau as a tool to investigate criminals who evaded prosecution by passing over state lines, and within a few years the number of agents had grown to more than 300. The agency was opposed by some in Congress, who feared that its growing authority could lead to abuse of power. With the entry of the United States into World War I in 1917, the bureau was given responsibility in investigating draft resisters, violators of the Espionage Act of 1917, and immigrants suspected of radicalism.
Meanwhile, J. Edgar Hoover, a lawyer and former librarian, joined the Department of Justice in 1917 and within two years had become special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Deeply anti-radical in his ideology, Hoover came to the forefront of federal law enforcement during the so-called “Red Scare” of 1919 to 1920. He set up a card index system listing every radical leader, organization, and publication in the United States and by 1921 had amassed some 450,000 files. More than 10,000 suspected communists were also arrested during this period, but the vast majority of these people were briefly questioned and then released. On May 10, 1924, he was appointed acting director of the Bureau of Investigation.
During the 1920s, with Congress’ approval, Director Hoover drastically restructured and expanded the Bureau of Investigation. He built the agency into an efficient crime-fighting machine, establishing a centralized fingerprint file, a crime laboratory, and a training school for agents.
In the 1930s, the Bureau of Investigation launched a dramatic battle against the epidemic of organized crime brought on by Prohibition. Notorious gangsters such as George “Machine Gun” Kelly and John Dillinger met their ends looking down the barrels of bureau-issued guns, while others, like Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, the elusive head of Murder, Inc., were successfully investigated and prosecuted by Hoover’s “G-men.” Hoover, who had a keen eye for public relations, participated in a number of these widely publicized arrests, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as it was known after 1935, became highly regarded by Congress and the American public.
With the outbreak of World War II, Hoover revived the anti-espionage techniques he had developed during the first Red Scare, and domestic wiretaps and other electronic surveillance expanded dramatically. After World War II, Hoover focused on the threat of radical, especially communist, subversion. The FBI compiled files on millions of Americans suspected of dissident activity, and Hoover worked closely with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and Senator Joseph McCarthy, the architect of America’s second Red Scare.
In 1956, Hoover initiated COINTELPRO, a secret counterintelligence program that initially targeted the U.S. Communist Party but later was expanded to infiltrate and disrupt any radical organization in America. During the 1960s, the immense resources of COINTELPRO were used against dangerous groups such as the Ku Klux Klan but also against African American civil rights organizations and liberal anti-war organizations. One figure especially targeted was civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who endured systematic harassment from the FBI.
By the time Hoover entered service under his eighth president in 1969, the media, the public, and Congress had grown suspicious that the FBI might be abusing its authority. For the first time in his bureaucratic career, Hoover endured widespread criticism, and Congress responded by passing laws requiring Senate confirmation of future FBI directors and limiting their tenure to 10 years. On May 2, 1972, with the Watergate affair about to explode onto the national stage, J. Edgar Hoover died of heart disease at the age of 77.
The Watergate affair subsequently revealed that the FBI had illegally protected President Richard Nixon from investigation, and the agency itself was thoroughly investigated by Congress. Revelations of the FBI’s abuses of power and unconstitutional surveillance motivated Congress and the media to become more vigilant in the future monitoring of the FBI.
JULY 26, 1931 : GRASSHOPPERS BRING RUIN TO MIDWEST
On this day in 1931, a swarm of grasshoppers descends on crops throughout the American heartland, devastating millions of acres. Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, already in the midst of a bad drought, suffered tremendously from this disaster.
Professor Jeff Lockwood of Wyoming describes being in a swarm as follows, They explode from beneath your feet. There’s sort of a rolling wave that forms out it front of you. They hit up against your body and cling against your clothes. It’s almost like being immersed in a gigantic living being. Locusts and grasshoppers undergo a significant transformation when they become part of a swarm. Their wings and jaws grow, enabling them to travel greater distances and increasing their appetite.
The July 1931 swarm was said to be so thick that it blocked out the sun and one could shovel the grasshoppers with a scoop. Cornstalks were eaten to the ground and fields left completely bare. Since the early 1930s, swarms have not been seen in the United States. However, North Africa and parts of the Middle East continue to experience problems with insect swarms, which sometimes includes as many as 1 billion bugs.
1942 – Judy Garland and Gene Kelly record “For Me and My Gal” as they perform and sing this song in the movie with the same name. That recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010.
On this day in 1943, the musician, actor, film producer and Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger was born in Dartford, Kent, England.
JULY 26, 1945 : WINSTON CHURCHILL RESIGNS
In the 11th hour of World War II, Winston Churchill is forced to resign as British prime minister following his party’s electoral defeat by the Labour Party.
Following his father’s death in 1895, Winston Churchill enjoyed an illustrious military career, serving in India, the Sudan, and South Africa, and distinguishing himself several times in battle. In 1899, he resigned his commission to concentrate on his literary and political career and in 1900 was elected to Parliament as a Conservative member of Parliament from Oldham. In 1904, Churchill joined the Liberals, serving in a number of important posts before being appointed Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, where he worked to bring the British navy to a readiness for the war he realized was coming.
In 1915, in the second year of World War I, Churchill was held responsible for the disastrous Dardanelles and Gallipoli campaigns, and he was excluded from the war coalition government. He resigned and volunteered to command an infantry battalion in France. However, in 1917, he returned to politics as a cabinet member in the Liberal government of Lloyd George.
From 1919 to 1921, he was secretary of state for war and in 1924 returned to the Conservative Party, where two years later he played a leading role in the defeat of the General Strike of 1926. Out of office from 1929 to 1939, Churchill issued unheeded warnings of the threat of Nazi and Japanese aggression.
After the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Churchill was called back to his post as First Lord of the Admiralty and eight months later replaced the ineffectual pacifist Neville Chamberlain as prime minister of a new coalition government. In the first year of his administration, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, but Churchill promised his country and the world that the British people would “never surrender.” He rallied the British people to a resolute resistance and expertly orchestrated Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin into an alliance that eventually crushed the Axis.
On July 26, 1945, a few weeks before the defeat of Japan in World War II, his Conservative government suffered an electoral loss against Clement Attlee’s Labour Party, and Churchill resigned as prime minister. He became leader of the opposition and in 1951 was again elected prime minister. Two years later, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for his six-volume historical study of World War II and for his political speeches. In 1955, he retired as prime minister but remained in Parliament until 1964, the year before his death.
JULY 26, 1947 : PRESIDENT TRUMAN SIGNS THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT
President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act, which becomes one of the most important pieces of Cold War legislation. The act established much of the bureaucratic framework for foreign policymaking for the next 40-plus years of the Cold War.
By July 1947, the Cold War was in full swing. The United States and the Soviet Union, once allies during World War II, now faced off as ideological enemies. In the preceding months, the administration of President Truman had argued for, and secured, military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey to assist in their struggles against communist insurgents. In addition, the Marshall Plan, which called for billions of dollars in U.S. aid to help rebuild war-torn Western Europe and strengthen it against possible communist aggression, had also taken shape. As the magnitude of the Cold War increased, however, so too did the need for a more efficient and manageable foreign policymaking bureaucracy in the United States. The National Security Act was the solution.
The National Security Act had three main parts. First, it streamlined and unified the nation’s military establishment by bringing together the Navy Department and War Department under a new Department of Defense. This department would facilitate control and utilization of the nation’s growing military.
Second, the act established the National Security Council (NSC). Based in the White House, the NSC was supposed to serve as a coordinating agency, sifting through the increasing flow of diplomatic and intelligence information in order to provide the president with brief but detailed reports.
Finally, the act set up the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIA replaced the Central Intelligence Group, which had been established in 1946 to coordinate the intelligence-gathering activities of the various military branches and the Department of State. The CIA, however, was to be much more–it was a separate agency, designed not only to gather intelligence but also to carry out covert operations in foreign nations.
The National Security Act formally took effect in September 1947. Since that time, the Department of Defense, NSC, and CIA have grown steadily in terms of size, budgets, and power. The Department of Defense, housed in the Pentagon, controls a budget that many Third World nations would envy.
The NSC rapidly became not simply an information organizing agency, but one that was active in the formation of foreign policy. The CIA also grew in power over the course of the Cold War, becoming involved in numerous covert operations. Most notable of these was the failed Bay of Pigs operation of 1961, in which Cuban refugees, trained and armed by the CIA, were unleashed against the communist regime of Fidel Castro. The mission was a disaster, with most of the attackers either killed or captured in a short time. Though it has had both successes and failures, the National Security Act indicated just how seriously the U.S. government took the Cold War threat of war with Russia.
| 1948 – In the U.S. population was about 131 million, 12.6 million of which was African American, or about 10 percent of the total population. During World War II, the Army had become the nation’s largest minority employer. Of the 2.5 million African Americans males who registered for the draft through December 31, 1945, more than one million were inducted into the armed forces. African Americans, who constituted approximately 11 per cent of all registrants liable for service, furnished approximately this proportion of the inductees in all branches of the service except the Marine Corps. Along with thousands of black women, these inductees served in all branches of service and in all Theaters of Operations during World War II.During World War II, President Roosevelt had responded to complaints about discrimination at home against African Americans by issuing Executive Order 8802 in June 1941, directing that blacks be accepted into job-training programs in defense plants, forbidding discrimination by defense contractors, and establishing a Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC).After the war, President Harry Truman, Roosevelt’s successor, faced a multitude of problems and allowed Congress to terminate the FEPC. However, in December 1946, Truman appointed a distinguished panel to serve as the President’s Commission on Civil Rights, which recommended “more adequate means and procedures for the protection of the civil rights of the people of the United States.” When the commission issued its report, “To Secure These Rights,” in October 1947, among its proposals were anti-lynching and anti-poll tax laws, a permanent FEPC, and strengthening the civil rights division of the Department of Justice.In February 1948 President Truman called on Congress to enact all of these recommendations. When Southern Senators immediately threatened a filibuster, Truman moved ahead on civil rights by using his executive powers. Among other things, Truman bolstered the civil rights division, appointed the first African American judge to the Federal bench, named several other African Americans to high-ranking administration positions, and most important, on July 26, 1948, he issued an executive order abolishing segregation in the armed forces and ordering full integration of all the services. Executive Order 9981 stated that “there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.” The order also established an advisory committee to examine the rules, practices, and procedures of the armed services and recommend ways to make desegregation a reality. There was considerable resistance to the executive order from the military, but by the end of the Korean conflict, almost all the military was integrated. |
Also in 1948 – Babe Ruth was seen by the public for the last time, when he attended the New York City premiere of the motion picture, “The Babe Ruth Story.”
- 1952 – Eva Perón, wife of Argentina dictator Juan Peron. And also an Argentinian actress and politician. The First Lady of Argentina died at the age of 33. Madonna later in the musical movie Eva and sang the legendary song “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”.
JULY 26, 1952 : BOB MATHIAS WINS SECOND OLYMPIC DECATHLON
On July 26, 1952, at the XV Olympiad in Helsinki, Finland, American Bob Mathias wins his second straight gold medal in the Olympic decathlon.
Bob Mathias was born on November 17, 1930, in Tulare, California. After a series of boyhood growth spurts left him underweight and anemic, his physician father prescribed for him liver and iron supplements. The regimen worked, and by the time Mathias was 17, he was 6 feet 2 inches tall and 190 pounds.
He competed on the track team in high school before trying the decathlon at the request of his coach, who was so green he trained Mathias for the event out of a manual. Just three months before his high school graduation, Mathias competed in his first meet, in Los Angeles, and won, which qualified him for the national championship. To his great surprise, he won that as well, which gave him for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
The decathlon at the 1948 London Olympics took place in miserable cold and rainy conditions. Mathias was forced to huddle under a blanket between events, many of which were delayed by downpours. The lousy weather, however, didn’t stop Mathias: With a score of 7,887, he broke the world record and became the youngest man in Olympic history to medal in a track and field event. Afterward he said “There was no pressure on me the first time because I didn’t know any better.” For his performance, Mathias won the Sullivan Award as America’s top amateur athlete.
In 1952, while a senior at Stanford University, Mathias traveled to Finland to defend his title. Despite struggling with a strained thigh muscle and intense media pressure, Mathias managed to beat out American Milton Campbell by more than 900 points, breaking his own world record and becoming the first repeat winner of the decathlon in Olympic history.
Mathias starred in The Bob Mathias Story in 1954 before enrolling in the Marines. Later, he served four terms in Congress as a representative from California. Mathias died of cancer in 2006 at the age of 75.
JULY 26, 1956 : EGYPT NATIONALIZES THE SUEZ CANAL
The Suez Crisis begins when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the British and French-owned Suez Canal.
The Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas across Egypt, was completed by French engineers in 1869. For the next 87 years, it remained largely under British and French control, and Europe depended on it as an inexpensive shipping route for oil from the Middle East.
After World War II, Egypt pressed for evacuation of British troops from the Suez Canal Zone, and in July 1956 President Nasser nationalized the canal, hoping to charge tolls that would pay for construction of a massive dam on the Nile River. In response, Israel invaded in late October, and British and French troops landed in early November, occupying the canal zone. Under Soviet, U.S., and U.N. pressure, Britain and France withdrew in December, and Israeli forces departed in March 1957. That month, Egypt took control of the canal and reopened it to commercial shipping.
Ten years later, Egypt shut down the canal again following the Six Day War and Israel’s occupation of the Sinai peninsula. For the next eight years, the Suez Canal, which separates the Sinai from the rest of Egypt, existed as the front line between the Egyptian and Israeli armies.
In 1975, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat reopened the Suez Canal as a gesture of peace after talks with Israel. Today, an average of 50 ships navigate the canal daily, carrying more than 300 million tons of goods a year.
Happy birthday to the delightful Sandra Bullock, born July 26, 1964. A month ago Sandra was voted the most beautiful actress in Hollywood. Today she turns 51.
JULY 26, 1968 : SOUTH VIETNAMESE OPPOSITION LEADER TRIED AND SENTENCED
Truong Dinh Dzu, a candidate who ran on a peace platform in the September 1967 presidential elections in South Vietnam, is sentenced to five years of hard labor for urging the formation of a coalition government as a step toward ending the war. This was the first time that a major political figure was tried and convicted under a 1965 decree that ordered the prosecution of persons “who interfere with the government’s struggle against communism.”
1969 – Elvis Presley opened his first live engagement in almost eight years at the International Hotel in Las Vegas.
January 26, 1971 – Apollo 15 was the ninth manned mission in the United States‘ Apollo program that was launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida, the fourth to land on the Moon, and the eighth successful manned mission.
Apollo 15 was the first of what were termed “J missions,” long stays on the Moon, with a greater focus on science than had been possible on previous missions. It was also the first mission on which the Lunar Roving Vehicle was used.
The mission began on July 26, 1971, and ended on August 7. At the time, NASA called it the most successful manned flight ever achieved
Died July 26, 1984 – George Gallup, American statistician, famous for his creation of the Gallup Poll. During his lifetime he brought many innovations to the polling process that other polls here and overseas attempt to copy. The Gallup poll is still one of the most highly respected today. George Gallup died at the age of 83.
On July 26, 1984, Edward Theodore Gein, a serial killer infamous for skinning human corpses, died of complications from cancer in a Wisconsin prison at age 77.
Gein served as the inspiration for writer Robert Bloch’s character Norman Bates in the 1959 novel “Psycho,” which in 1960 was turned into a film starring Anthony Perkins and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
In November 1957, police found the headless, gutted body of a missing store clerk, Bernice Worden, at Gein’s farmhouse. Upon further investigation, authorities discovered a collection of human skulls along with furniture and clothing, including a suit made from human body parts and skin. Gein told police he had dug up the graves of recently buried women who reminded him of his mother. Investigators found the remains of 10 women in Gein’s home, but he was ultimately linked to just two murders: Bernice Worden and another local woman, Mary Hogan.
Gein was declared mentally unfit to stand trial and was sent to a state hospital in Wisconsin. His farm attracted crowds of curiosity seekers before it burned down in 1958, most likely in a blaze set by an arsonist. In 1968, Gein was deemed sane enough to stand trial, but a judge ultimately found him guilty by reason of insanity and he spent the rest of his days in a state facility.
July 26, 1987
Peter Dyneka, evangelist to East Europeans died. Born in Russia, he was converted in a Billy Sunday service after coming to America. For his energetic spread of the gospel throughout East Europe, Peter Dyneka had become known as Peter Dynamite.
JULY 26, 1998 : THREE RACE FANS KILLED AT MICHIGAN SPEEDWAY
The U.S. 500, the most prestigious race in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series, dissolves into tragedy on this day in 1998, when three fans are killed and six others wounded by flying debris from a car at Michigan Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan.
CART (later known as Champ Car) was an open-wheel racing circuit created in the late 1970s by racing team owners frustrated with the direction of the existing United States Automobile Club (USAC). Open-wheel cars, built specifically for racing, are sophisticated vehicles built for speed, with small, open cockpits and wheels located outside the car’s main body. In CART races, as well as those of its rival open-wheel circuit, the Indy Racing League, drivers often achieved speeds of up to 230 mph in the straightaways. (In comparison, drivers in National Association for Stock Car Racing–better known as NASCAR–events reach as much as 200 mph.)
While rounding the fourth turn at Michigan Speedway (a two-mile oval) in the 1998 U.S. 500, driver Adrian Fernandez lost control of his car and crashed into one of the raceway’s retaining walls. The car broke apart, and the right front tire and part of the suspension flew over the 15-foot-high wall and into the stands. Traveling nearly 200 mph, the debris hit fans in the eighth and 10th rows. Two people were killed instantly; another died moments later, and six others were injured.
To the outrage of Sports Illustrated reporter Rick Reilly, who wrote a scathing editorial about the incident in the magazine, race officials didn’t stop the event, which was won by the young Canadian driver Greg Moore. (In a tragic twist of fate, Moore died in October 1999, after a fatal crash in the CART season finale, the Marlboro 500, in California.)
In August 1998, Michigan Speedway announced that it would extend the protective fencing around all of its grandstand sections to a total of around 17 feet in an effort to prevent further accidents.
The CART circuit changed its name to Champ Car in 2004. Four years later, plagued because of financial troubles, the Champ Car World Series declared bankruptcy and merged with the Indy Racing League.
And finally – July 26, 2015
Bobbi Kristina Brown, the daughter of late actress and Grammy-winning pop star Whitney Houston and R&B singer Bobby Brown, has died at age 22. Brown died today at Peachtree Christian Hospice in Duluth, Georgia
The aspiring actress and singer was the only child of Whitney Houston and the fourth child of Bobby Brown.
Brown was found face down and unresponsive in a bathtub in a suburban Atlanta townhome on January 31. Brown’s long term partner Nick Gordon, who she referred to as her husband, along with a friend found her. CPR was performed at the scene and Brown was placed on a respirator when admitted to North Fulton Hospital the same day.
It remains unclear why Brown was unconscious. An investigation into the incident remains open, according to Roswell’s chief of police. The investigative file was handed over to the Fulton County District Attorney who will determine whether any charges will be filed, authorities said in late June.
Brown’s tragic passing comes little more than three years after her mother was found unresponsive in bathtub in a Beverly Hills, California hotel. She later died. Authorities concluded Houston, 48, drowned. Heart disease and cocaine use were listed as contributing factors in her death. Houston, who sold more than 50 million records in the United States and was awarded six Grammys, had struggled with addiction for many years.
A child star by default, Bobbi Kristina Brown grew up in the glare of the media spotlight due to her parents success and much publicized accounts of their combustible 14 year marriage. Houston and Brown divorced in 2007 with Houston retaining sole custody of their daughter.
Bobbi Brown was in the hotel the day her mother was pronounced dead. The same evening the then 18-year-old was taken to Cedars Sinai Medical Center where she was treated for stress and anxiety.
Houston’s mother Cissy spoke with People in 2013 about how her daughter’s death continued to adversely affect her granddaughter. “Of course I worry about her,” Cissy said. “It doesn’t mean that she is going to follow her [mother’s] same path. She could but anybody could. I don’t want to jinx her. I’m trying to make sure she doesn’t.”
Though her fame never matched the stratospheric heights of her mother’s, Brown was familiar to audiences through appearances on reality television, such as the the 2012 Lifetime series “The Houstons: On Our Own,” which followed Houston’s family after her death. Early, while still attending elementary school, Brown featured on the 2005 Bravo docu-drama series, “Being Bobbi Brown,” in which she was often seen accompanying one of her parents on tour.
Prolific on Twitter, Brown wrote about moving her career to the next level only two days prior to her hospitalization in January. “Let’s start this career up and moving OUT to TO YOU ALLLL quick shall we !?!???!” she tweeted.
Her Twitter feed was peppered with motivational quotes, images and mentions of Gordon and her late mother. On Instagram she shared images of herself and Gordon.
Houston opened her home to 12-year-old Gordon when his birth mother could no longer care for him. Never legally adopted, Gordon was raised alongside Houston’s daughter. Brown and Gordon went public with their relationship two months after Houston’s death in 2012. The couple continued to court controversy when in 2013 they were evicted from their Atlanta apartment after multiple noise complaints from a neighbor.
The union drew criticism from both fans and family, including Pat Houston. “It just didn’t sit right with me,” Pat said during a 2014 episode of “Oprah: Where Are They Now?” “I always looked at them as being the brother-and-sister type. I just did not see the relationship moving in that direction.”
Brown publicly insisted her late mother would have approved of the relationship.
“I’m tired of hearing people say, ‘Eww you’re engaged to your brother, or “If Whitney was still alive would we be together or would she approve of this?’ Let me clear up something. We aren’t even real brother and sister, nor is he even my adoptive brother,” she posted on Facebook ahead of announcing she had married Gordon in January 2014.
But according to her father, the pair never officially tied the knot. In a statement released four days after her most recent hospitalization, Bobby Brown issued the following statement: “To correct earlier reports, Bobbi Kristina is not and has never been married to Nick Gordon.”
Bobby Brown, Kristina’s father reported that there was an ongoing feud between Nick and Bobbi. He said this after she was hospitalized. Bobby Brown refused Gordon access to his daughter, asking her boyfriend to reveal details of exactly what happened on the day Bobbi Kristina was found unresponsive at home.
In March Gordon made an appearance on “Dr. Phil” alongside his birth mother. After appearing on the show–which host Phil McGraw described as an “intervention”–Gordon checked into a rehab facility.
Brown’s court-appointed conservator filed a lawsuit June 24 against Gordon in Fulton County Superior Court, alleging that Gordon had physically abused Bobbi Kristina, and that Gordon had taken more than $11,000 from her bank account.
Back in March 2014, Bobbi Kristina came under scrutiny for her rapidly diminishing physique, which she proudly showed off on social media platforms. “I am my mothers child! Have you ever heard of a #fast metabolism?” she tweeted in response to questions and comments about her size.
Rumors and reports surfaced that like her parents, Brown was was facing addiction issues. In July of last year a photo was reportedly posted to her Instagram account showing her allegedly smoking marijuana out of a bong. She denied the photo was hers.
Brown was back in the headlines again in late 2014 when she went public with her anger toward director Angela Bassett, who chose not to feature the budding actress in the Houston biopic “Whitney,” which aired January 17 on Lifetime. Bassett told Entertainment Weekly there were “a number of reasons” why she did not consider Brown for the title role. “One being that she’s not an actress,” Bassett said. Brown later apologized for a Twitter rant aimed at the director. Though approached, Houston’s family chose not to participate in any aspect of the Lifetime movie.
A resolute Cissy Houston discussed her granddaughter’s ongoing medical condition during a radio interview with New York’s WBLS on March 25 saying, “There’s not a great deal of hope.” She encouraged fans to continue to pray for Bobby Kristina, adding she would be thankful if God worked a miracle, but if it “happens the other way, I’m all right.”
It happened the other way today.
Ray’s This Day in History – July 26
Ray"s This Day in History – July 26