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Ray’s Today in History – July 29
Ray opens his almanac for us with some very vital events that have taken place between 904 A.D. and 2015 on the date of July 29. You are going to hear what happened to Thessalonica where the apostle Paul wrote two books of the Bible directly to them. And you’ll learn a surprising fact about the artist Vincent van Gogh. Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston will even play parts on this day in history. Ray will begin sharing all this in just a few moments.
This is Ray Mossholder in the headquarters of Reach More Now in Fort Worth, Texas. We are about to discover events in history related to the date July 29.
For example, on this day in 904 – Thessalonica began being ravaged. After a short siege, Saracen raiders under Leo of Tripoli murdered, burned, raped and plundered the people, and demolished the Byzantine Empire’s second-largest city. The city that, during the first century, received two books of the Bible that were written in prison by the apostle Paul, was now in ruins.
The Hussite priest Jan Želivský and his followers, some armed with pikes, swords, and clubs, marched to the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows in Prague from which they had been barred by Catholic authorities. Breaking in, they held a Communion service with both bread and wine. The group then proceeded to the town hall where several newly appointed Catholic councilmen were gathered, and demanded the release of imprisoned reformers. When the councilmen refuse, the protesters hurled thirteen of them out a window. Those who survived the fall were chased away by the mob.
On July 29, 1547, John Knox is captured by the French. He had become the chaplain of the killers of Cardinal Beaton of St. Andrews. When the French capture their castle, he is sentenced to the galleys. Eventually though he will escape the galleys to become a leader of the Scottish Reformation.
On July 29th,1588, off the coast of Gravelines, France, Spain’s so-called “Invincible Armada” is defeated by an English naval force under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake. After eight hours of furious fighting, a change in wind direction prompted the Spanish to break off from the battle and retreat toward the North Sea. Its hopes of invasion crushed, the remnants of the Spanish Armada began a long and difficult journey back to Spain.
In the late 1580s, English raids against Spanish commerce and Queen Elizabeth I’s support of the Dutch rebels in the Spanish Netherlands led King Philip II of Spain to plan the conquest of England. Pope Sixtus V gave his blessing to what was called “The Enterprise of England,” which he hoped would bring the Protestant isle back into the fold of Rome. A giant Spanish invasion fleet was completed by 1587, but Sir Francis Drake’s daring raid on the Armada’s supplies in the port of Cadiz delayed the Armada’s departure until May 1588.
On May 19, the Invincible Armada set sail from Lisbon on a mission to secure control of the English Channel and transport a Spanish army to the British isle from Flanders. The fleet was under the command of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia and consisted of 130 ships carrying 2,500 guns, 8,000 seamen, and almost 20,000 soldiers. The Spanish ships were slower and less well armed than their English counterparts, but they planned to force boarding actions if the English offered battle, and the superior Spanish infantry would undoubtedly prevail. Delayed by storms that temporarily forced it back to Spain, the Armada did not reach the southern coast of England until July 19. By that time, the British were ready.
On July 21, the English navy began bombarding the seven-mile-long line of Spanish ships from a safe distance, taking full advantage of their long-range heavy guns. The Spanish Armada continued to advance during the next few days, but its ranks were thinned by the English assault. On July 27, the Armada anchored in exposed position off Calais, France, and the Spanish army prepared to embark from Flanders. Without control of the Channel, however, their passage to England would be impossible.
Just after midnight on July 29, the English sent eight burning ships into the crowded harbor at Calais. The panicked Spanish ships were forced to cut their anchors and sail out to sea to avoid catching fire. The disorganized fleet, completely out of formation, was attacked by the English off Gravelines at dawn. In a decisive battle, the superior English guns won the day, and the devastated Armada was forced to retreat north to Scotland. The English navy pursued the Spanish as far as Scotland and then turned back for want of supplies.
Battered by storms and suffering from a dire lack of supplies, the Armada sailed on a hard journey back to Spain around Scotland and Ireland. Some of the damaged ships foundered in the sea while others were driven onto the coast of Ireland and wrecked. By the time the last of the surviving fleet reached Spain in October, half of the original Armada was lost and some 15,000 men had perished.
Queen Elizabeth’s decisive defeat of the Invincible Armada made England a world-class power and introduced effective long-range weapons into naval warfare for the first time, ending the era of boarding and close-quarter fighting.
English Quaker William Penn died on July 29, 1718. He had founded the American colony of Pennsylvania. He declared it a colony with true religious freedom. His picture is immortalized on Quaker Oats cereal boxes.
July 29, 1775 – The body of Johann Sebastian Bach, musical genius and composer while serving as director and singing master of the St. Thomas School at Leipsic. He was laid to rest in an unmarked grave at the churchyard of St. John’s. His music will endure forever.
On July 29 in 1776, Silvestre de Escalante and Francisco Dominguez, two Spanish Franciscan priests, began an expedition through the Southwest. Escalante and Dominguez hoped to blaze a trail from New Mexico to Monterey, California, but their main goal was to visit with the native inhabitants and convert as many as possible to the Catholic faith. The two priests and seven men left the Spanish frontier town of Santa Fe and headed northwest into what is today the state of Colorado. They continued north, exploring the rugged Great Basin and canyon land country of Utah.
Initially, the priests made good time, and by mid-September, they had reached Utah Lake, just to the south of the Great Salt Lake in northern Utah. There, they found Indians who Dominguez described as “the most docile and affable nation of all that have been known in these regions.” They quickly set about preaching the Gospel, reportedly with “such happy results that they are awaiting Spaniards so that they might become Christians.”
By early October, winter was approaching. Traveling through high mountain passes, Escalante and Dominguez began to encounter fierce snowstorms. Accustomed to desert living, the priests were unequipped to deal with snow and bitter cold, and they soon ran short of provisions. They abandoned the goal of reaching California and headed back for Santa Fe. During the long journey home, they very nearly starved to death. The men ate their horses first. When the horseflesh was gone, they ate only prickly pear cactus.
On January 2, 1777, the exhausted men staggered into Santa Fe. They had traveled nearly 1,700 miles in just 159 days through some of the roughest country in the southwest, yet all nine members of the party made it home safely. Escalante and Dominguez had failed in their goal of finding a route to Monterey, and to their keen disappointment, the New Mexican missionaries showed little interest in following up their initial proselytizing with the Utah Indians.
Nonetheless, the two intrepid priests were the first to explore extensively the Great Basin country of the Southwest. Escalante’s written account of the expedition became an essential guide to future explorers.
On this day in 1778, French Vice-Admiral Count d’Estaing establishes contact with the Continental Army, which is waiting for his help to retake Rhode Island.
Following the Franco-American treaty of alliance signed the previous February, Americans expected a rapid defeat of the British. D’Estaing, a French naval commander, departed Toulon, France, in 1778, with a fleet of 12 ships-of-the-line and 4 frigates, with which he intended to help the Patriots. The British, who could have put d’Estaing’s ships out of commission before they made it to North American waters, were ill-prepared for his departure, and d’Estaing’s fleet passed through the Straits of Gibraltar without difficulty.
D’Estaing’s approach caused the British to evacuate Philadelphia and to march to New York to avoid an encounter with the fleet. The British also evacuated Newport Harbor as a preventive measure, destroying some of their fleet so as to rob the French of the pleasure. However, the planned Franco-American attack on Rhode Island never took place.
Earlier in July, d’Estaing had blockaded Howe’s measly force of nine small ships-of-the-line off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, but chose not to attack despite his superior force, before setting sail for Newport. D’Estaing lost his second opportunity to engage Howe due to a sudden storm that separated the fleets and battered d’Estaing’s ships. Instead of laying siege to Newport, d’Estaing repaired his ships in Boston. Patriots were furious at his failure to regain Newport, leading to riots in Boston and Charleston. Thinking it best that he left the scene of such animosity, D’Estaing chose to sail for the West Indies.
July 29, 1822 – Pioneer church founder James Varick at the age of 72 years old was consecrated the first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
Viva le France – July 29, 1836 – The Arc de Triomphe was inaugurated and celebrated in Paris, France.
On July 29, 1848, at the height of the Potato Famine in Ireland, an abortive nationalist revolt against English rule was crushed by a government police detachment in Tipperary. In a brief skirmish in a cabbage patch, Irish nationalists under William Smith O’Brien were overcome and arrested. The nationalists, members of the Young Ireland movement, had planned to declare an independent Irish republic, but they lacked support from the Irish peasantry, who were occupied entirely with surviving the famine.
By the mid-19th century, the Irish population, which suffered under the system of absentee landlords, had been reduced to a subsistence diet based largely on potatoes. When a potato blight struck the country in the 1840s, disaster ensued. Between 1846 and 1851, more than one million people starved to death, and some two million people left the country, mostly to America. With the desperate times of the famine came an increased radicalism in the Irish nationalist movement.
In 1846, O’Brien formed, with John Mitchel, the Irish Confederation, a branch of the Young Ireland movement dedicated to freeing Ireland by direct action. By 1848, the group was calling for open rebellion against the English, but Mitchel was arrested, convicted of sedition, and transported to a prison colony in Australia before the revolt could begin. Aggravated by the worsening potato famine and Mitchel’s arrest, O’Brien launched an unsuccessful uprising on July 29, 1848. He was arrested and sentenced to death for treason, but his sentence was commuted to transportation to the penal colony at Tasmania.
After the failure of the Young Ireland revolt, many embittered Irish nationalists immigrated to the United States, Australia, and Canada, where they redoubled their agitation against England.
On July 29, 1862, Confederate spy Marie Isabella “Belle” Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. It was the first of three arrests for this skilled spy who provided crucial information to the Confederates during the war.
The Virginian-born Boyd was just 17 when the war began. She was from a prominent slaveholding family in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1861, she shot and killed a Union solider for insulting her mother and threatening to search their house. Union officers investigated and decided the shooting was justified.
Soon after the shooting incident, Boyd began spying for the Confederacy. She used her charms to engage Union soldiers and officers in conversations and acquire information about Federal military affairs. Suspecting her of spying, Union officers banished Boyd further south in the Shenandoah, to Front Royal, Virginia, in March 1862. Just two months later, Boyd personally delivered crucial information to General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson during his campaign in the valley that allowed the Confederates to defeat General Nathaniel Banks’s forces at the Battle of Winchester. In another incident, Boyd turned two chivalrous Union cavalrymen who had escorted her back home across Union lines over to Confederate pickets as prisoners of war.
Boyd was detained on several occasions, and on July 29 she was placed in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington. But her incarceration was evidently of limited hardship. She was given many special considerations, and she became engaged to a fellow prisoner. Upon her release one month later, she was given a trousseau by the prison’s superintendent and shipped under a flag of truce to Richmond, Virginia.
Boyd was arrested again in 1863 and held for three months. After this second imprisonment, she became a courier of secret messages to Great Britain. In 1864, her ship was captured off the coast of North Carolina, and the ship and crew were taken to New York. Captain Samuel Hardinge commanded the Union ship that captured Boyd’s vessel, and the two were seen shopping together in New York. He followed her to London, and they were married soon after.
Boyd was widowed soon after the end of the war, but the marriage produced one child. Still just 21, Boyd parlayed her spying experiences into a book and an acting career. She died in Wisconsin of a heart attack in 1900 at the age of 56.
| Born this day in 1883 | Benito Mussolini, brutal Dictator of Italy for 23 years until his nation’s people joyfully had him hung. | |
A far happier birth took place on July 29, 1888. when composer Sigmund Romberg was born.
- 1890 – Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter died at the age of 37. By the way, in spite of a legend, he died with both ears in place.
On July 29th, 1900, in Monza, Italy, King Umberto I was shot to death by Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist who resided in America before returning to his homeland to murder the king.
Crowned in 1878, King Umberto became increasingly authoritarian in the late 19th century. He enacted a program of suppression against the radical elements in Italian society, particularly members of the popular anarchist movements.
Gaetano Bresci, who was born into poverty in Tuscany, immigrated to America in the 1890s seeking a better life. Bresci settled with his family in Paterson, New Jersey, and was employed in a weaving mill. The city was a hotbed of Italian American radicalism at the time, and Bresci became a cofounder of an anarchist newspaper, La Questione Sociale. Sacrificing his free time and scarce extra money to the paper, Bresci was regarded by his political allies as a devoted anarchist. He never forgot his countrymen back in Italy, and he read with horror of the events that unfolded in 1898.
The crops were poor that year, and much of the peasantry was starving. Seeking a respite from their government, peasants and workers marched to Milan to petition the king for relief. King Umberto ordered the demonstrators to disperse, and when they did not, he ordered the Italian army under General Bava Beccaris to force them out of Milan. Beccaris’ soldiers fired cannons and numerous rounds into the crowd, and hundreds were killed. When Umberto then decorated Beccaris for the military action, Bresci resolved that the king should die.
Taking money from the newspaper without explaining to his compatriots why, Bresci traveled to Italy and in July 1900 finally got close to the king, who was making a royal visit to Milan. Umberto had already survived two attempts on his life, but on July 29, 1900, Bresci hit his mark, killing the king with three bullets. Bresci was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to a life of hard labor at Santo Stefano Prison on Ventotene Island. On May 22, 1901, he was found dead in his cell, allegedly a victim of suicide.
On July 29, 1909, the newly formed General Motors Corporation (GM) acquires the country’s leading luxury automaker, the Cadillac Automobile Company, for $4.5 million.
Cadillac was founded out of the ruins of automotive pioneer Henry Ford’s second failed company (his third effort, the Ford Motor Company, finally succeeded). When the shareholders of the defunct Henry Ford Company called in Detroit machinist Henry Leland to assess the company’s assets for their planned sale, Leland convinced them to stay in business. His idea was to combine Ford’s latest chassis (frame) with a single-cylinder engine developed by Oldsmobile, another early automaker. To that end, the Cadillac Car Company (named for the French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Cadillac, who founded the city of Detroit in 1701) was founded in August 1902. Leland introduced the first Cadillac–priced at $850–at the New York Auto Show the following year.
In its first year of production, Cadillac put out nearly 2500 cars, a huge number at the time. Leland, who was reportedly motivated by an intense competition with Henry Ford, assumed full leadership of Cadillac in 1904, and with his son Wilfred by his side he firmly established the brand’s reputation for quality. Among the excellent luxury cars being produced in America at the time–including Packard, Lozier, McFarland and Pierce-Arrow, Cadillac led the field, making the top 10 in overall U.S. auto sales every year from 1904 to 1915.
By 1909, William C. Durant had assembled Buick and Oldsmobile as cornerstones of his new General Motors Corporation, founded the year before. By the end of July, he had persuaded Wilfred Leland to sell Cadillac for $4.5 million in GM stock. Durant kept the Lelands on in their management position, however, giving them full responsibility for automotive production. Three years later, Cadillac introduced the world’s first successful electric self-starter, developed by Charles F. Kettering; its pioneering V-8 engine was installed in all Cadillac models in 1915.
Over the years, Cadillac maintained its reputation for luxury and innovation: In 1954, for example, it was the first automaker to provide power steering and automatic windshield washers as standard equipment on all its vehicles. Though the brand was knocked out of its top-of-the-market position in the 1980s by the German luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz, it sought to reestablish itself during the following decades, and Cadillac remains a leader in the luxury car market.
In the early hours of July 29, 1914, Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, began a frantic exchange of telegrams regarding the newly erupted war in the Balkan region and the possibility of its escalation into a general European war.
One day prior, Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia, one month after the assassination in Sarajevo of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by a Serbian nationalist. In the wake of the killings, Germany had promised Austria-Hungary its unconditional support in whatever punitive action it chose to take towards Serbia, regardless of whether or not Serbia’s powerful ally, Russia, stepped into the conflict. By the time an ultimatum from Vienna to Serbia was rejected on July 25, Russia, defying Austro-German expectations, had already ordered preliminary mobilization to begin, believing that Berlin was using the assassination crisis as a pretext to launch a war to shore up its power in the Balkans.
The relationship between Nicholas and Wilhelm, two grandsons of Britain’s Queen Victoria, had long been a rocky one. Though Wilhelm described himself as Victoria’s favorite grandson, the great queen in turn warned Nicholas to be careful of Wilhelm’s “mischievous and unstraight-forward proceedings.” Victoria did not invite the Kaiser, who she described to her prime minister as “a hot-headed, conceited, and wrong-headed young man,” to her Diamond Jubilee celebration in 1897, nor her 80th birthday two years later. Czar Nicholas himself commented in 1902 after a meeting with Wilhelm: “He’s raving mad!” Now, however, the two cousins stood at the center of the crisis that would soon escalate into the First World War.
“In this serious moment, I appeal to you to help me,” Czar Nicholas wrote to the Kaiser in a telegram sent at one o’clock on the morning of July 29. “An ignoble war has been declared to a weak country. The indignation in Russia shared fully by me is enormous. I foresee that very soon I shall be overwhelmed by the pressure forced upon me and be forced to take extreme measures which will lead to war.” This message crossed with one from Wilhelm to Nicholas expressing concern about the effect of Austria’s declaration in Russia and urging calm and consideration as a response.
After receiving the czar’s telegram, Wilhelm cabled back: “I…share your wish that peace should be maintained. But…I cannot consider Austria’s action against Serbia a dishonorable war. Austria knows by experience that Serbian promises on paper are wholly unreliable. I understand its action must be judged as trying to get full guarantee that the Serbian promises shall become real facts…I therefore suggest that it would be quite possible for Russia to remain a spectator of the Austro-Serbian conflict without involving Europe in the most horrible war she ever witnessed.” Though Wilhelm assured the czar that the German government was working to broker an agreement between Russia and Austria-Hungary, he warned that if Russia were to take military measures against Austria, war would be the result.
The telegram exchange continued over the next few days, as the two men spoke of their desire to preserve peace, even as their respective countries continued mobilizing for war. On July 30, the Kaiser wrote to Nicholas: “I have gone to the utmost limits of the possible in my efforts to save peace….Even now, you can still save the peace of Europe by stopping your military measures.” The following day, Nicholas replied: “It is technically impossible to stop our military preparations which were obligatory owing to Austria’s mobilization. We are far from wishing for war. As long as the negotiations with Austria on Serbia’s account are taking place my troops shall not make any provocative action. I give you my solemn word for this.” But by that time things had gone too far: Emperor Franz Josef had rejected the Kaiser’s mediation offer, saying it came too late, as Russia had already mobilized and Austrian troops were already marching on Serbia.
The German ambassador to Russia delivered an ultimatum that night—halt the mobilization within 12 hours, or Germany would begin its own mobilization, a step that would logically proceed to war. By four o’clock in the afternoon of August 1, in Berlin, no reply had come from Russia. At a meeting with Germany’s civilian and military leaders—Chancellor Theobald Bethmann von Hollweg and General Erich von Falkenhayn—Kaiser Wilhelm agreed to sign the mobilization orders.
That same day, in his last contribution to what were dubbed the “Willy-Nicky” telegrams, Czar Nicholas pressed the Kaiser for assurance that his mobilization did not definitely mean war. Wilhelm’s response was dismissive. “I yesterday pointed out to your government the only way by which war may be avoided….I have…been obliged to mobilize my army. Immediate affirmative clear and unmistakable answer from your government is the only way to avoid endless misery. Until I have received this answer alas, I am unable to discuss the subject of your telegram. As a matter of fact I must request you to immediatly [sic] order your troops on no account to commit the slightest act of trespassing over our frontiers.” Germany declared war on Russia that same day.
| July 29, 1921 – | Adolf Hitler becomes the president of the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis). |
On this day in 1945, the USS Indianapolis is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sinks within minutes in shark-infested waters. Only 317 of the 1,196 men on board survived. However, the Indianapolis had already completed its major mission: the delivery of key components of the atomic bomb that would be dropped a week later at Hiroshima to Tinian Island in the South Pacific.
The Indianapolis made its delivery to Tinian Island on July 26, 1945. The mission was top secret and the ship’s crew was unaware of its cargo. After leaving Tinian, the Indianapolis sailed to the U.S. military’s Pacific headquarters at Guam and was given orders to meet the battleship USS Idaho at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines to prepare for the invasion of Japan.
Shortly after midnight on July 30, halfway between Guam and Leyte Gulf, a Japanese sub blasted the Indianapolis, sparking an explosion that split the ship and caused it to sink in approximately 12 minutes, with about 300 men trapped inside. Another 900 went into the water, where many died from drowning, shark attacks, dehydration or injuries from the explosion. Help did not arrive until four days later, on August 2, when an anti-submarine plane on routine patrol happened upon the men and radioed for assistance.
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, inflicting nearly 130,000 casualties and destroying more than 60 percent of the city. On August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, where casualties were estimated at over 66,000. Meanwhile, the U.S. government kept quiet about the Indianapolis tragedy until August 15 in order to guarantee that the news would be overshadowed by President Harry Truman’s announcement that Japan had surrendered.
In the aftermath of the events involving the Indianapolis, the ship’s commander, Captain Charles McVay, was court-martialed in November 1945 for failing to sail a zigzag course that would have helped the ship to evade enemy submarines in the area. McVay, the only Navy captain court-martialed for losing a ship during the war, committed suicide in 1968. Many of his surviving crewmen believed the military had made him a scapegoat. In 2000, 55 years after the Indianapolis went down, Congress cleared McVay’s name.
| July 29,1938 | Peter Jennings, former ABC evening news anchor was born. And that really is the truth! |
July 29, 1956 – By an act of Congress, signed by President Eisenhower, ‘In God We Trust’ became the official U.S. motto.
- On July 29, 1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency was established.
On this day in 1958, the U.S. Congress passed legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America’s activities in space. NASA has since sponsored space expeditions, both human and mechanical, that have yielded vital information about the solar system and universe. It has also launched numerous earth-orbiting satellites that have been instrumental in everything from weather forecasting to navigation to global communications.
NASA was created in response to the Soviet Union’s October 4, 1957 launch of its first satellite, Sputnik I. The 183-pound, basketball-sized satellite orbited the earth in 98 minutes. The Sputnik launch caught Americans by surprise and sparked fears that the Soviets might also be capable of sending missiles with nuclear weapons from Europe to America. The United States prided itself on being at the forefront of technology, and, embarrassed, immediately began developing a response, signaling the start of the U.S.-Soviet space race.
On November 3, 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik II, which carried a dog named Laika. In December, America attempted to launch a satellite of its own, called Vanguard, but it exploded shortly after takeoff.
On January 31, 1958, things went better with Explorer I, the first U.S. satellite to successfully orbit the earth. In July of that year, Congress passed legislation officially establishing NASA from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and other government agencies, and confirming the country’s commitment to winning the space race.
In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy declared that America should put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. On July 20, 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 mission achieved that goal and made history when astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, saying “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”
NASA has continued to make great advances in space exploration since the first moonwalk, including playing a major part in the construction of the International Space Station. The agency has also suffered tragic setbacks, however, such as the disasters that killed the crews of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986 and the Columbia space shuttle in 2003. In 2004, President George Bush challenged NASA to return to the moon by 2020 and establish “an extended human presence” there that could serve as a launching point for “human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.”
In 1958 President Eisenhower authorized creation of NASA and on on July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill that creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He called the signing an [sic] historic step, further equipping the United States for leadership in the space age.
Since the end of World War II, the United States had worked to make breakthroughs in rocket science. Eisenhower’s particular legislation expanded the original National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) into NASA. NASA research, which was generously funded by Eisenhower’s successors, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and was responsible for successful and groundbreaking American achievements such as the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969 and the development of the space shuttle, first launched in 1981.
More recently, NASA has sent robotic exploratory missions to Mars and launched a spacecraft to view Pluto. NASA’s research has also contributed to advances in consumer-oriented goods such as telecommunications satellites and computer technology.
Although NASA currently engages in cooperative projects with other nations, Eisenhower at the time had to add a cautionary note when signing the legislation that created the new agency. He warned that NASA’s research into peaceful projects could be shared only when international treaties outlining such projects were authorized first by the president and the U.S. Senate. Ike, the former Army general who oversaw the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II, wanted to ensure that NASA would not share information that was vital to national security.
NASA continued its explorations until President Barack Obama shut it down.
On July 29, 1965 the first 4,000 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay. They made a demonstration jump immediately after arriving, observed by General William Westmoreland and outgoing Ambassador (formerly General) Maxwell Taylor. Taylor and Westmoreland were both former commanders of the division, which was known as the “Screaming Eagles.” The 101st Airborne Division has a long and storied history, including combat jumps during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, and the subsequent Market-Garden airborne operation in the Netherlands. Later, the division distinguished itself by its defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.
The 1st Brigade fought as a separate brigade until 1967, when the remainder of the division arrived in Vietnam. The combat elements of the division consisted of 10 battalions of airmobile infantry, six battalions of artillery, an aerial rocket artillery unit armed with rocket-firing helicopters, and an air reconnaissance unit. Another unique feature of the division was its aviation group, which consisted of three aviation battalions of assault helicopters and gunships.
The majority of the 101st Airborne Division’s tactical operations were in the Central Highlands and in the A Shau Valley farther north. Among its major operations was the brutal fight for Ap Bia Mountain, known as the “Hamburger Hill” battle.
The last Army division to leave Vietnam, the remaining elements of the 101st Airborne Division returned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where today it is the Army’s only airmobile division. During the war, troopers from the 101st won 17 Medals of Honor for bravery in combat. The division suffered almost 20,000 soldiers killed or wounded in action in Vietnam, over twice as many as the 9,328 casualties it suffered in World War II.
On July 29, 1967, fire swept the U.S. aircraft carrier Forrestal off the coast of North Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin. It was the worst U.S. naval disaster in a combat zone since World War II. The accident took the lives of 134 crewmen and injured 62 more. Of the carrier’s 80 planes, 21 were destroyed and 42 were damaged. The deadly fire on the USS Forrestal began with the accidental launch of a rocket.
During the Vietnam War, the USS Forrestal was often stationed off the coast of North Vietnam, conducting combat operations. On the morning of July 29, the ship was preparing to attack when a rocket from one of its own F-4 Phantom jet fighters was accidentally launched. The rocket streaked across the deck and hit a parked A-4 Skyhawk jet. The Skyhawk, which was waiting to take off, was piloted by John McCain, the future senator from Arizona.
Fuel from the Skyhawk spilled out and caught fire. The fire then spread to nearby planes on the ship’s deck and detonated a 1,000-pound bomb, which killed many of the initial firefighters and further spread the fire. A chain reaction of explosions blew holes in the flight deck and had half the large ship on fire at one point. Many pilots were trapped in their planes as the fire spread. It took a full day before the fires could be fully contained.
Along with the hundreds of sailors that were seriously injured and 134 who lost their lives in the devastating fire, twenty planes were destroyed. Temporary repairs were made to the ship in the Philippines before the Forrestal headed back to Norfolk, Virginia. It was repaired and put back into service the following April, but never returned to Vietnam.
John McCain narrowly escaped the fire and, afterwards, volunteered for duty on the USS Oriskany. Just three months later, his plane was shot down over North Vietnam and he was taken prisoner. He was not released until five-and-a-half years later, in 1973, having undergone hideous torture. McCain was offered his freedom from prison and North Vietnam years before he left with all his fellow prisoners. But he would not leave without them.
- On that very same day – July 29, 1967 – During the fourth day of celebrating its 400th anniversary, the city of Caracas, Venezuela is shaken by an earthquake, leaving approximately 500 dead.
On this day The Doors scored their first #1 hit with “Light My Fire”.
By the beginning of 1967, The Doors were well-established members of the Los Angeles music scene. As the house band at the Whiskey a Go Go on the Sunset Strip, they had built a large local following and strong industry buzz, and out on the road, they were fast becoming known as a band that might typically receive third billing, but could blow better-known groups like The Young Rascals and The Grateful Dead off the stage. It would have been poetic if their popular breakthrough had come via their now-classic debut single, “Break On Through,” but that record failed to make the national sales charts despite the efforts of Jim Morrison and his bandmates to fuel the song’s popularity by repeatedly calling in requests for it to local L.A. radio stations. It was the follow-up release from their debut album, The Doors, which would become their first bona fide smash. “Light My Fire,” which earned the top spot in the Billboard Hot 100 on this day in 1967, transformed The Doors from cult favorites of the rock connoisseurs into international pop stars and avatars of the 60s counterculture.
As “Light My Fire” climbed the charts in June and early July, The Doors were out on the East Coast, still plugging away as an opening act for Simon and Garfunkel in Forest Hills, Queens’ and other big-name rock stars, and as sometime-headliners in a Greenwich, Connecticut, high-school auditorium and other such places.
When the group topped the charts in late July, Jim Morrison celebrated by buying his now-famous skintight black-leather suit and beginning to hobnob with the likes of the iconic model/muse Nico at drug-fueled parties held by Andy Warhol.
Attempting to keep Morrison grounded were not only his fellow Doors Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and John Densmore, as well as the professional manager they had hired in part to “babysit” him, but also his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson, who is quoted in Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman’s Doors biography No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980) as greeting the sight of Jim Morrison preening in front of a mirror at home before a show in the summer of 1967 with, “Oh Jim, are you going to wear the same leather pants again? You never change your clothes. You’re beginning to smell, did you know that?”
In the end, of course, Morrison’s heavy drinking and drug use would lead to increasingly erratic behavior over the next four years and eventually take his life in July 1971. During that period, The Doors would follow up “Light My Fire” with a string of era-defining albums and songs.
On July 29, 1972 former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark visits North Vietnam as a member of the International Commission of Inquiry into U.S. War Crimes in Indochina. This commission was formed to investigate alleged U.S. bombing of non-military targets in North Vietnam. Clark reported over Hanoi radio that he had seen damage to hospitals, dikes, schools, and civilian areas. His visit stirred intense controversy at home. Nothing ever came of Clark’s claims, but he was lauded by antiwar activists for pointing out the damage done by the U.S. bombing attacks. Other Americans condemned Clark as a traitor and liar to the United States.
July 29, 1976, the so-called “Son of Sam” pulled a gun from a paper bag and fired five shots at Donna Lauria and Jody Valenti of the Bronx while they are sitting in a car, talking. Lauria died and Valenti was seriously wounded in the first in a series of shootings by the serial killer, who terrorized New York City over the course of the next year.
Once dubbed the “.44 Caliber Killer,” the Son of Sam eventually got his name from letters he sent to both the police and famed newspaper writer Jimmy Breslin that said, “…I am a monster. I am the Son of Sam. I love to hunt, prowling the streets looking for fair game. The weman are prettyist of all [sic]…”
The second attack came on October 23, 1976, when a couple was shot as they sat in a car in Queens. A month later, two girls were talking on a stoop outside a home when the serial killer approached, asked for directions, and then suddenly pulled a gun out and fired several shots. Joanne Lomino was paralyzed from a bullet that struck her spine, but her friend was not seriously injured.
The Son of Sam attacked again in January and March of 1977. In the latter attack, witnesses provided a description of the killer: an unattractive white man with black hair. After yet another shooting in the Bronx in April, the publicity hit a fever pitch. Women, particularly those with dark hair, were discouraged from traveling at night in the city.
When the Son of Sam missed his intended victims in another murder attempt in June, vigilante groups formed across New York City looking for the killer. His last two victims were shot on July 31, 1977, in Brooklyn; one died. Then, police following up on a parking ticket that had been given out that night discovered a machine gun in a car belonging to David Berkowitz of Yonkers, New York.
When questioned, Berkowitz explained that “Sam” was his neighbor Sam Carr–an agent of the devil. Sam transmitted his orders through his pet black Labrador. Years earlier, Berkowitz had shot the dog, complaining that its barking was keeping him from sleeping. After the dog recovered, Berkowitz claimed that it began speaking to him and demanding that he kill people.
In an unusual sequence of events, Berkowitz was allowed to plead guilty before claiming insanity and was sentenced to over 300 years in prison. In prison, he later claimed to have become a born-again Christian.
On this day in 1981 nearly one billion television viewers in 74 countries tuned in to witness the marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, to Lady Diana Spencer, a young English schoolteacher. Married in a grand ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in the presence of 2,650 guests, the couple’s romance was for the moment the envy of the world. Their first child, Prince William, was born in 1982, and their second, Prince Harry, in 1984.
Before long, however, the fairy-tale couple grew apart, an experience that was particularly painful under the prying eyes of the world’s tabloid media. Diana and Charles announced a separation in 1992, though they continued to carry out their royal duties. In August 1996, two months after Queen Elizabeth II urged the couple to divorce, the prince and princess reached a final agreement. In exchange for a generous settlement, and the right to retain her apartments at Kensington Palace and her title of “princess,” Diana agreed to relinquish the title of “Her Royal Highness” and any future claims to the British throne.
In the year following the divorce, the popular princess seemed well on her way of achieving her dream of becoming “a queen in people’s hearts,” but on August 31, 1997, she was killed with her companion Dodi Fayed in a car accident in Paris. Tests conducted by French police indicated that the driver, who also died in the crash, was intoxicated and likely caused the accident while trying to escape the paparazzi photographers who consistently tailed Diana during any public outing.
On April 9, 2005, Prince Charles wed his longtime mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, in a private civil ceremony. The ceremony had originally been planned for April 8, but had to be rescheduled so as not to conflict with the funeral of Pope John Paul II. After the civil ceremony, which the queen did not attend, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams blessed the union on behalf of the Church of England in a separate blessing ceremony. An estimated 750 guests attended the event, which was held at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor and was attended by both of Charles’ parents, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
Though Camilla technically became the Princess of Wales with the marriage, she has announced her preference for the title Duchess of Cornwall, in deference to the beloved late princess. Should Charles become king, she will become Queen Camilla, though she has already announced her intention to use the title Princess Consort, most likely in response to public opinion polls showing resistance to the idea of a Queen Camilla.
- July 29, 1967 – During the fourth day of celebrating its 400th anniversary, the city of Caracas, Venezuela is shaken by an earthquake, leaving approximately 500 dead.
- American gangster Mickey Cohen died in prison while asleep on July 29, 1976, at the age of 63. His girlfriend spent three years in prison because she wouldn’t inform on him.
- On this day in 1987 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand signed the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel – the Eurotunnel).
On this day in 1996, track and field legend Carl Lewis at 35 wins his fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the long jump. It was the ninth and final Olympic gold of his storied career.
Frederick Carlton Lewis was born July 11, 1961, in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in a middle-class community in New Jersey. As a teenager, Lewis met Olympic champion Jesse Owens, who became his hero. He participated in track and field, but was undersized until high school, when he grew the long legs that help a sprinter cover ground and underwent a huge growth spurt that forced him to walk with crutches for three months while he fine-tuned his gait. Once fully developed at 6 feet 2 inches tall, Lewis set a national high school record in the long jump with a 26-foot-8-inch leap.
After a standout career at the University of Houston, Lewis won the 100 meters, 200 meters and the long jump at the 1983 National Championships, and entered the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles as the top-ranked sprinter in the world. There, he met his goal of four gold medals, winning the long jump, the 100 meters, the 200 meters and anchoring the victorious U.S. team in the 4 x 100 meter relay.
Four years later, at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Lewis lost the 100 meters to Canada’s Ben Johnson but won gold in the long jump with a distance of 28’ 7frac 14”. But after it was found he had used performance-enhancing drugs, Johnson was stripped of the gold medal, which was then awarded to Lewis.
The 1992 Olympics–the third of his career–was another triumph for Lewis. He again brought home gold in the 4 x 100 meter relay and in the long jump–his third long jump gold in a row–this time with a distance of 28’ 5frac12.
By the time the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta rolled around, Lewis was 35 years old. Though he was still admired around the world for his previous Olympic triumphs, he had barely managed to qualify for the U.S. team in the long jump and most experts believed he’d be lucky to medal, let alone win another gold. Going into the last of his three jumps, Lewis trailed Emmanuel Bangue of France and his leading jump of 26’ 10 ½” by two inches. Lewis took off cleanly after a smooth sprint and landed face down, but knowing instinctively that the jump had secured him first place, he quickly got to his feet and raised his arms in triumph. His mark of 27’ 10 ¾” was his longest in two years–a full foot ahead of Bangue—and good enough for his fourth consecutive gold in the long jump.
The win at Atlanta made Lewis the first Olympian since American discus thrower Al Oerter to win the same event four times. His career is considered among the greatest in track and field history.
| 1990 | The Boston Red Sox hit 12 doubles in a game, setting major league record. |
On this day in 2000, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, one of Hollywood’s highest-profile couples, marry at the Malibu, California, estate of the producer Marcy Carsey who had also produced The Cosby Show. The two actors reportedly met on a blind date in 1998 and quickly became favorites of the tabloid media once they went public with their romance. Their wedding cost an estimated $1 million and featured tight security to keep out the paparazzi.
Pitt, who was born in 1963 in Oklahoma, rose to fame in the early 1990s with roles in such films as Thelma & Louise (1991), A River Runs Through It (1992) and Kalifornia (1993). He went on to build a long list of starring movie credits, including Fight Club (1999), Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and Babel (2006).
Aniston, who was born in 1969 in California, became famous for her role as Rachel Green on the hit TV sitcom Friends, which aired from 1994 to 2004. The actress has also made a number of movies, including The Good Girl (2002), Bruce Almighty (2003) and Rumor Has It (2005).
Despite their reputation as one of Hollywood’s golden couples, rumors eventually began to circulate that Aniston and Pitt were having problems. In 2004, speculation swirled that Pitt had become romantically involved with Angelina Jolie, his co-star in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). Over the New Year, Pitt and Aniston were photographed walking hand-in-hand on the beach in Anguilla, yet just days later, while they were still on vacation, a joint statement was issued announcing their separation. Though it seemed to be an amicable breakup, the press speculated that Pitt had wanted to have a family and Aniston–who had recently wrapped up a 10-year-run with Friends and had begun appearing in more films–was reluctant to take a break in her career for motherhood. Pitt was also depicted as being increasingly involved in global charity work, including the AIDS crisis in Africa.
Analysis of the breakup only intensified that spring, after Pitt was photographed with Jolie, a UNICEF representative, and her adopted son at a beach resort in Africa. Soon, they emerged as a full-blown couple, posing as a 1960s-era husband and wife (with a brood of blond children) for a 60-page photo spread titled “Domestic Bliss” in the July 2005 issue of W magazine. Outraged Aniston fans and friends denounced Pitt (who had in fact come up with the concept for the photo spread himself) as insensitive, and Jolie as a glamorous homewrecker. Novelty T-shirts at the time advertised their wearers as belonging to “Team Aniston” or “Team Jolie”; according to Vanity Fair, Aniston T-shirts outsold Jolies 25 to one.
Aniston and Pitt’s divorce was finalized in October 2005. In January 2006, Jolie announced she was pregnant with Pitt’s child; soon after, the news broke that Pitt had successfully adopted Jolie’s children Maddox and Zahara, whose surnames were legally changed to Jolie-Pitt. Jolie gave birth to a baby girl, Shiloh, in May 2006. In March of the following year, Jolie and Pitt adopted another son, Pax Thien, from Vietnam. In July 2008, Jolie and Pitt had twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.
Angelina Jolie has now become one of the greatest Hollywood directors of this decade. Last year she directed her husband, Brad, in one of the greatest war movies ever – Fury.
- 1996 – The child protection portion of the Communications Decency Act is struck down by a U.S. federal court as too broad.
| July 29, 2005 | Astronomers announce discovery of dwarf planet Eris, leading the International Astronomic Union to clarify the definition of a planet. |
The Declaration of Montreal on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Human Rights is a document adopted in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on July 29, 2006, by the International Conference on LGBT Human Rights. The Declaration has also been adopted by the City Councils of:[14]
And finally….. Today, July 29, 2015 –
The rhinoceros was down to its last six members last fall. Then there were five. Now, with the death of a northern white rhino in a Czech zoo today, there are just four of the animals left in a species already past the point of no return.
Nabire, a 31-year-old female, died Monday in the same zoo where she was born; she was unable to produce offspring because she suffered from uterine cysts, one of which ended up killing her, Live Science reports.
“The pathological cyst inside the body of Nabire was huge. There was no way to treat it,” said the zoo’s rhino curator in a statement.
“Her death is a symbol of the catastrophic decline of rhinos due to a senseless human greed,” the zoo’s director said, per AFP. “Her species is on the very brink of extinction.” With the death of Nabire, the only remaining northern white rhinos are three females who are unable to breed—an elderly female at the San Diego Zoo and two in Kenya—and the last surviving male, who’s also at the Kenyan conservancy, where a last-ditch breeding effort to save the species failed, the APreports.
In a Facebook post, the San Diego Zoo offered its condolences to the Czech zoo and said that instead of giving up on the species, it’s collecting genetic material so the rhino’s genome can be preserved.
The Czech zoo removed Nabire’s healthy left ovary after her death, and the zoo’s statement notes that the ultimate goal would be to generate northern white rhino embryos and transfer them into a closely related surrogate: the southern white rhino.
But scientists have not yet developed IVF procedures that work for rhinos, Live Science notes.
This is Ray Mossholder in the headquarters of Reach More Now in Fort Worth, Texas. We are about to discover events in history related to the date July 29.
For example, on this day in 904 – Thessalonica began being ravaged. After a short siege, Saracen raiders under Leo of Tripoli murdered, burned, raped and plundered the people, and demolished the Byzantine Empire’s second-largest city. The city that, during the first century, received two books of the Bible that were written in prison by the apostle Paul, was now in ruins.
On July 29, 1419, The Hussite priest Jan Želivský and his followers, some armed with pikes, swords, and clubs, marched to the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows in Prague from which they had been barred by Catholic authorities. Breaking in, they held a Communion service with both bread and wine. The group then proceeded to the town hall where several newly appointed Catholic councilmen were gathered, and demanded the release of imprisoned reformers. When the councilmen refuse, the protesters hurled thirteen of them out a window. Those who survived the fall were chased away by the mob.
On July 29, 1547, John Knox is captured by the French. He had become the chaplain of the killers of Cardinal Beaton of St. Andrews. When the French capture their castle, he is sentenced to the galleys. Eventually though he will escape the galleys to become a leader of the Scottish Reformation.
On July 29th,1588, off the coast of Gravelines, France, Spain’s so-called “Invincible Armada” is defeated by an English naval force under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake. After eight hours of furious fighting, a change in wind direction prompted the Spanish to break off from the battle and retreat toward the North Sea. Its hopes of invasion crushed, the remnants of the Spanish Armada began a long and difficult journey back to Spain.
In the late 1580s, English raids against Spanish commerce and Queen Elizabeth I’s support of the Dutch rebels in the Spanish Netherlands led King Philip II of Spain to plan the conquest of England. Pope Sixtus V gave his blessing to what was called “The Enterprise of England,” which he hoped would bring the Protestant isle back into the fold of Rome. A giant Spanish invasion fleet was completed by 1587, but Sir Francis Drake’s daring raid on the Armada’s supplies in the port of Cadiz delayed the Armada’s departure until May 1588.
On May 19, the Invincible Armada set sail from Lisbon on a mission to secure control of the English Channel and transport a Spanish army to the British isle from Flanders. The fleet was under the command of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia and consisted of 130 ships carrying 2,500 guns, 8,000 seamen, and almost 20,000 soldiers. The Spanish ships were slower and less well armed than their English counterparts, but they planned to force boarding actions if the English offered battle, and the superior Spanish infantry would undoubtedly prevail. Delayed by storms that temporarily forced it back to Spain, the Armada did not reach the southern coast of England until July 19. By that time, the British were ready.
On July 21, the English navy began bombarding the seven-mile-long line of Spanish ships from a safe distance, taking full advantage of their long-range heavy guns. The Spanish Armada continued to advance during the next few days, but its ranks were thinned by the English assault. On July 27, the Armada anchored in exposed position off Calais, France, and the Spanish army prepared to embark from Flanders. Without control of the Channel, however, their passage to England would be impossible.
Just after midnight on July 29, the English sent eight burning ships into the crowded harbor at Calais. The panicked Spanish ships were forced to cut their anchors and sail out to sea to avoid catching fire. The disorganized fleet, completely out of formation, was attacked by the English off Gravelines at dawn. In a decisive battle, the superior English guns won the day, and the devastated Armada was forced to retreat north to Scotland. The English navy pursued the Spanish as far as Scotland and then turned back for want of supplies.
Battered by storms and suffering from a dire lack of supplies, the Armada sailed on a hard journey back to Spain around Scotland and Ireland. Some of the damaged ships foundered in the sea while others were driven onto the coast of Ireland and wrecked. By the time the last of the surviving fleet reached Spain in October, half of the original Armada was lost and some 15,000 men had perished.
Queen Elizabeth’s decisive defeat of the Invincible Armada made England a world-class power and introduced effective long-range weapons into naval warfare for the first time, ending the era of boarding and close-quarter fighting.
English Quaker William Penn died on July 29, 1718. He had founded the American colony of Pennsylvania. He declared it a colony with true religious freedom. His picture is immortalized on Quaker Oats cereal boxes.
July 29, 1775 – The body of Johann Sebastian Bach, musical genius and composer while serving as director and singing master of the St. Thomas School at Leipsic. He was laid to rest in an unmarked grave at the churchyard of St. John’s. His music will endure forever.
On July 29 in 1776, Silvestre de Escalante and Francisco Dominguez, two Spanish Franciscan priests, began an expedition through the Southwest. Escalante and Dominguez hoped to blaze a trail from New Mexico to Monterey, California, but their main goal was to visit with the native inhabitants and convert as many as possible to the Catholic faith. The two priests and seven men left the Spanish frontier town of Santa Fe and headed northwest into what is today the state of Colorado. They continued north, exploring the rugged Great Basin and canyon land country of Utah.
Initially, the priests made good time, and by mid-September, they had reached Utah Lake, just to the south of the Great Salt Lake in northern Utah. There, they found Indians who Dominguez described as “the most docile and affable nation of all that have been known in these regions.” They quickly set about preaching the Gospel, reportedly with “such happy results that they are awaiting Spaniards so that they might become Christians.”
By early October, winter was approaching. Traveling through high mountain passes, Escalante and Dominguez began to encounter fierce snowstorms. Accustomed to desert living, the priests were unequipped to deal with snow and bitter cold, and they soon ran short of provisions. They abandoned the goal of reaching California and headed back for Santa Fe. During the long journey home, they very nearly starved to death. The men ate their horses first. When the horseflesh was gone, they ate only prickly pear cactus.
On January 2, 1777, the exhausted men staggered into Santa Fe. They had traveled nearly 1,700 miles in just 159 days through some of the roughest country in the southwest, yet all nine members of the party made it home safely. Escalante and Dominguez had failed in their goal of finding a route to Monterey, and to their keen disappointment, the New Mexican missionaries showed little interest in following up their initial proselytizing with the Utah Indians.
Nonetheless, the two intrepid priests were the first to explore extensively the Great Basin country of the Southwest. Escalante’s written account of the expedition became an essential guide to future explorers.
On this day in 1778, French Vice-Admiral Count d’Estaing establishes contact with the Continental Army, which is waiting for his help to retake Rhode Island.
Following the Franco-American treaty of alliance signed the previous February, Americans expected a rapid defeat of the British. D’Estaing, a French naval commander, departed Toulon, France, in 1778, with a fleet of 12 ships-of-the-line and 4 frigates, with which he intended to help the Patriots. The British, who could have put d’Estaing’s ships out of commission before they made it to North American waters, were ill-prepared for his departure, and d’Estaing’s fleet passed through the Straits of Gibraltar without difficulty.
D’Estaing’s approach caused the British to evacuate Philadelphia and to march to New York to avoid an encounter with the fleet. The British also evacuated Newport Harbor as a preventive measure, destroying some of their fleet so as to rob the French of the pleasure. However, the planned Franco-American attack on Rhode Island never took place.
Earlier in July, d’Estaing had blockaded Howe’s measly force of nine small ships-of-the-line off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, but chose not to attack despite his superior force, before setting sail for Newport. D’Estaing lost his second opportunity to engage Howe due to a sudden storm that separated the fleets and battered d’Estaing’s ships. Instead of laying siege to Newport, d’Estaing repaired his ships in Boston. Patriots were furious at his failure to regain Newport, leading to riots in Boston and Charleston. Thinking it best that he left the scene of such animosity, D’Estaing chose to sail for the West Indies.
July 29, 1822 – Pioneer church founder James Varick at the age of 72 years old was consecrated the first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
Viva le France – July 29, 1836 – The Arc de Triomphe was inaugurated and celebrated in Paris, France.
On July 29, 1848, at the height of the Potato Famine in Ireland, an abortive nationalist revolt against English rule was crushed by a government police detachment in Tipperary. In a brief skirmish in a cabbage patch, Irish nationalists under William Smith O’Brien were overcome and arrested. The nationalists, members of the Young Ireland movement, had planned to declare an independent Irish republic, but they lacked support from the Irish peasantry, who were occupied entirely with surviving the famine.
By the mid-19th century, the Irish population, which suffered under the system of absentee landlords, had been reduced to a subsistence diet based largely on potatoes. When a potato blight struck the country in the 1840s, disaster ensued. Between 1846 and 1851, more than one million people starved to death, and some two million people left the country, mostly to America. With the desperate times of the famine came an increased radicalism in the Irish nationalist movement.
In 1846, O’Brien formed, with John Mitchel, the Irish Confederation, a branch of the Young Ireland movement dedicated to freeing Ireland by direct action. By 1848, the group was calling for open rebellion against the English, but Mitchel was arrested, convicted of sedition, and transported to a prison colony in Australia before the revolt could begin. Aggravated by the worsening potato famine and Mitchel’s arrest, O’Brien launched an unsuccessful uprising on July 29, 1848. He was arrested and sentenced to death for treason, but his sentence was commuted to transportation to the penal colony at Tasmania.
After the failure of the Young Ireland revolt, many embittered Irish nationalists immigrated to the United States, Australia, and Canada, where they redoubled their agitation against England.
On July 29, 1862, Confederate spy Marie Isabella “Belle” Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. It was the first of three arrests for this skilled spy who provided crucial information to the Confederates during the war.
The Virginian-born Boyd was just 17 when the war began. She was from a prominent slaveholding family in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1861, she shot and killed a Union solider for insulting her mother and threatening to search their house. Union officers investigated and decided the shooting was justified.
Soon after the shooting incident, Boyd began spying for the Confederacy. She used her charms to engage Union soldiers and officers in conversations and acquire information about Federal military affairs. Suspecting her of spying, Union officers banished Boyd further south in the Shenandoah, to Front Royal, Virginia, in March 1862. Just two months later, Boyd personally delivered crucial information to General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson during his campaign in the valley that allowed the Confederates to defeat General Nathaniel Banks’s forces at the Battle of Winchester. In another incident, Boyd turned two chivalrous Union cavalrymen who had escorted her back home across Union lines over to Confederate pickets as prisoners of war.
Boyd was detained on several occasions, and on July 29 she was placed in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington. But her incarceration was evidently of limited hardship. She was given many special considerations, and she became engaged to a fellow prisoner. Upon her release one month later, she was given a trousseau by the prison’s superintendent and shipped under a flag of truce to Richmond, Virginia.
Boyd was arrested again in 1863 and held for three months. After this second imprisonment, she became a courier of secret messages to Great Britain. In 1864, her ship was captured off the coast of North Carolina, and the ship and crew were taken to New York. Captain Samuel Hardinge commanded the Union ship that captured Boyd’s vessel, and the two were seen shopping together in New York. He followed her to London, and they were married soon after.
Boyd was widowed soon after the end of the war, but the marriage produced one child. Still just 21, Boyd parlayed her spying experiences into a book and an acting career. She died in Wisconsin of a heart attack in 1900 at the age of 56.
| Born this day in 1883 | Benito Mussolini, brutal Dictator of Italy for 23 years until his nation’s people joyfully had him hung. | |
A far happier birth took place on July 29, 1888. when composer Sigmund Romberg was born.
- 1890 – Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter died at the age of 37. By the way, in spite of a legend, he died with both ears in place.
On July 29th, 1900, in Monza, Italy, King Umberto I was shot to death by Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist who resided in America before returning to his homeland to murder the king.
Crowned in 1878, King Umberto became increasingly authoritarian in the late 19th century. He enacted a program of suppression against the radical elements in Italian society, particularly members of the popular anarchist movements.
Gaetano Bresci, who was born into poverty in Tuscany, immigrated to America in the 1890s seeking a better life. Bresci settled with his family in Paterson, New Jersey, and was employed in a weaving mill. The city was a hotbed of Italian American radicalism at the time, and Bresci became a cofounder of an anarchist newspaper, La Questione Sociale. Sacrificing his free time and scarce extra money to the paper, Bresci was regarded by his political allies as a devoted anarchist. He never forgot his countrymen back in Italy, and he read with horror of the events that unfolded in 1898.
The crops were poor that year, and much of the peasantry was starving. Seeking a respite from their government, peasants and workers marched to Milan to petition the king for relief. King Umberto ordered the demonstrators to disperse, and when they did not, he ordered the Italian army under General Bava Beccaris to force them out of Milan. Beccaris’ soldiers fired cannons and numerous rounds into the crowd, and hundreds were killed. When Umberto then decorated Beccaris for the military action, Bresci resolved that the king should die.
Taking money from the newspaper without explaining to his compatriots why, Bresci traveled to Italy and in July 1900 finally got close to the king, who was making a royal visit to Milan. Umberto had already survived two attempts on his life, but on July 29, 1900, Bresci hit his mark, killing the king with three bullets. Bresci was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to a life of hard labor at Santo Stefano Prison on Ventotene Island. On May 22, 1901, he was found dead in his cell, allegedly a victim of suicide.
On July 29, 1909, the newly formed General Motors Corporation (GM) acquires the country’s leading luxury automaker, the Cadillac Automobile Company, for $4.5 million.
Cadillac was founded out of the ruins of automotive pioneer Henry Ford’s second failed company (his third effort, the Ford Motor Company, finally succeeded). When the shareholders of the defunct Henry Ford Company called in Detroit machinist Henry Leland to assess the company’s assets for their planned sale, Leland convinced them to stay in business. His idea was to combine Ford’s latest chassis (frame) with a single-cylinder engine developed by Oldsmobile, another early automaker. To that end, the Cadillac Car Company (named for the French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Cadillac, who founded the city of Detroit in 1701) was founded in August 1902. Leland introduced the first Cadillac–priced at $850–at the New York Auto Show the following year.
In its first year of production, Cadillac put out nearly 2500 cars, a huge number at the time. Leland, who was reportedly motivated by an intense competition with Henry Ford, assumed full leadership of Cadillac in 1904, and with his son Wilfred by his side he firmly established the brand’s reputation for quality. Among the excellent luxury cars being produced in America at the time–including Packard, Lozier, McFarland and Pierce-Arrow, Cadillac led the field, making the top 10 in overall U.S. auto sales every year from 1904 to 1915.
By 1909, William C. Durant had assembled Buick and Oldsmobile as cornerstones of his new General Motors Corporation, founded the year before. By the end of July, he had persuaded Wilfred Leland to sell Cadillac for $4.5 million in GM stock. Durant kept the Lelands on in their management position, however, giving them full responsibility for automotive production. Three years later, Cadillac introduced the world’s first successful electric self-starter, developed by Charles F. Kettering; its pioneering V-8 engine was installed in all Cadillac models in 1915.
Over the years, Cadillac maintained its reputation for luxury and innovation: In 1954, for example, it was the first automaker to provide power steering and automatic windshield washers as standard equipment on all its vehicles. Though the brand was knocked out of its top-of-the-market position in the 1980s by the German luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz, it sought to reestablish itself during the following decades, and Cadillac remains a leader in the luxury car market.
In the early hours of July 29, 1914, Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, began a frantic exchange of telegrams regarding the newly erupted war in the Balkan region and the possibility of its escalation into a general European war.
One day prior, Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia, one month after the assassination in Sarajevo of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by a Serbian nationalist. In the wake of the killings, Germany had promised Austria-Hungary its unconditional support in whatever punitive action it chose to take towards Serbia, regardless of whether or not Serbia’s powerful ally, Russia, stepped into the conflict. By the time an ultimatum from Vienna to Serbia was rejected on July 25, Russia, defying Austro-German expectations, had already ordered preliminary mobilization to begin, believing that Berlin was using the assassination crisis as a pretext to launch a war to shore up its power in the Balkans.
The relationship between Nicholas and Wilhelm, two grandsons of Britain’s Queen Victoria, had long been a rocky one. Though Wilhelm described himself as Victoria’s favorite grandson, the great queen in turn warned Nicholas to be careful of Wilhelm’s “mischievous and unstraight-forward proceedings.” Victoria did not invite the Kaiser, who she described to her prime minister as “a hot-headed, conceited, and wrong-headed young man,” to her Diamond Jubilee celebration in 1897, nor her 80th birthday two years later. Czar Nicholas himself commented in 1902 after a meeting with Wilhelm: “He’s raving mad!” Now, however, the two cousins stood at the center of the crisis that would soon escalate into the First World War.
“In this serious moment, I appeal to you to help me,” Czar Nicholas wrote to the Kaiser in a telegram sent at one o’clock on the morning of July 29. “An ignoble war has been declared to a weak country. The indignation in Russia shared fully by me is enormous. I foresee that very soon I shall be overwhelmed by the pressure forced upon me and be forced to take extreme measures which will lead to war.” This message crossed with one from Wilhelm to Nicholas expressing concern about the effect of Austria’s declaration in Russia and urging calm and consideration as a response.
After receiving the czar’s telegram, Wilhelm cabled back: “I…share your wish that peace should be maintained. But…I cannot consider Austria’s action against Serbia a dishonorable war. Austria knows by experience that Serbian promises on paper are wholly unreliable. I understand its action must be judged as trying to get full guarantee that the Serbian promises shall become real facts…I therefore suggest that it would be quite possible for Russia to remain a spectator of the Austro-Serbian conflict without involving Europe in the most horrible war she ever witnessed.” Though Wilhelm assured the czar that the German government was working to broker an agreement between Russia and Austria-Hungary, he warned that if Russia were to take military measures against Austria, war would be the result.
The telegram exchange continued over the next few days, as the two men spoke of their desire to preserve peace, even as their respective countries continued mobilizing for war. On July 30, the Kaiser wrote to Nicholas: “I have gone to the utmost limits of the possible in my efforts to save peace….Even now, you can still save the peace of Europe by stopping your military measures.” The following day, Nicholas replied: “It is technically impossible to stop our military preparations which were obligatory owing to Austria’s mobilization. We are far from wishing for war. As long as the negotiations with Austria on Serbia’s account are taking place my troops shall not make any provocative action. I give you my solemn word for this.” But by that time things had gone too far: Emperor Franz Josef had rejected the Kaiser’s mediation offer, saying it came too late, as Russia had already mobilized and Austrian troops were already marching on Serbia.
The German ambassador to Russia delivered an ultimatum that night—halt the mobilization within 12 hours, or Germany would begin its own mobilization, a step that would logically proceed to war. By four o’clock in the afternoon of August 1, in Berlin, no reply had come from Russia. At a meeting with Germany’s civilian and military leaders—Chancellor Theobald Bethmann von Hollweg and General Erich von Falkenhayn—Kaiser Wilhelm agreed to sign the mobilization orders.
That same day, in his last contribution to what were dubbed the “Willy-Nicky” telegrams, Czar Nicholas pressed the Kaiser for assurance that his mobilization did not definitely mean war. Wilhelm’s response was dismissive. “I yesterday pointed out to your government the only way by which war may be avoided….I have…been obliged to mobilize my army. Immediate affirmative clear and unmistakable answer from your government is the only way to avoid endless misery. Until I have received this answer alas, I am unable to discuss the subject of your telegram. As a matter of fact I must request you to immediatly [sic] order your troops on no account to commit the slightest act of trespassing over our frontiers.” Germany declared war on Russia that same day.
| July 29, 1921 – | Adolf Hitler becomes the president of the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis). |
On this day in 1945, the USS Indianapolis is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sinks within minutes in shark-infested waters. Only 317 of the 1,196 men on board survived. However, the Indianapolis had already completed its major mission: the delivery of key components of the atomic bomb that would be dropped a week later at Hiroshima to Tinian Island in the South Pacific.
The Indianapolis made its delivery to Tinian Island on July 26, 1945. The mission was top secret and the ship’s crew was unaware of its cargo. After leaving Tinian, the Indianapolis sailed to the U.S. military’s Pacific headquarters at Guam and was given orders to meet the battleship USS Idaho at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines to prepare for the invasion of Japan.
Shortly after midnight on July 30, halfway between Guam and Leyte Gulf, a Japanese sub blasted the Indianapolis, sparking an explosion that split the ship and caused it to sink in approximately 12 minutes, with about 300 men trapped inside. Another 900 went into the water, where many died from drowning, shark attacks, dehydration or injuries from the explosion. Help did not arrive until four days later, on August 2, when an anti-submarine plane on routine patrol happened upon the men and radioed for assistance.
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, inflicting nearly 130,000 casualties and destroying more than 60 percent of the city. On August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, where casualties were estimated at over 66,000. Meanwhile, the U.S. government kept quiet about the Indianapolis tragedy until August 15 in order to guarantee that the news would be overshadowed by President Harry Truman’s announcement that Japan had surrendered.
In the aftermath of the events involving the Indianapolis, the ship’s commander, Captain Charles McVay, was court-martialed in November 1945 for failing to sail a zigzag course that would have helped the ship to evade enemy submarines in the area. McVay, the only Navy captain court-martialed for losing a ship during the war, committed suicide in 1968. Many of his surviving crewmen believed the military had made him a scapegoat. In 2000, 55 years after the Indianapolis went down, Congress cleared McVay’s name.
| July 29,1938 | Peter Jennings, former ABC evening news anchor was born. And that really is the truth! |
July 29, 1956 – By an act of Congress, signed by President Eisenhower, ‘In God We Trust’ became the official U.S. motto.
- On July 29, 1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency was established.
On this day in 1958, the U.S. Congress passed legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America’s activities in space. NASA has since sponsored space expeditions, both human and mechanical, that have yielded vital information about the solar system and universe. It has also launched numerous earth-orbiting satellites that have been instrumental in everything from weather forecasting to navigation to global communications.
NASA was created in response to the Soviet Union’s October 4, 1957 launch of its first satellite, Sputnik I. The 183-pound, basketball-sized satellite orbited the earth in 98 minutes. The Sputnik launch caught Americans by surprise and sparked fears that the Soviets might also be capable of sending missiles with nuclear weapons from Europe to America. The United States prided itself on being at the forefront of technology, and, embarrassed, immediately began developing a response, signaling the start of the U.S.-Soviet space race.
On November 3, 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik II, which carried a dog named Laika. In December, America attempted to launch a satellite of its own, called Vanguard, but it exploded shortly after takeoff.
On January 31, 1958, things went better with Explorer I, the first U.S. satellite to successfully orbit the earth. In July of that year, Congress passed legislation officially establishing NASA from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and other government agencies, and confirming the country’s commitment to winning the space race.
In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy declared that America should put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. On July 20, 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 mission achieved that goal and made history when astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, saying “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”
NASA has continued to make great advances in space exploration since the first moonwalk, including playing a major part in the construction of the International Space Station. The agency has also suffered tragic setbacks, however, such as the disasters that killed the crews of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986 and the Columbia space shuttle in 2003. In 2004, President George Bush challenged NASA to return to the moon by 2020 and establish “an extended human presence” there that could serve as a launching point for “human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.”
In 1958 President Eisenhower authorized creation of NASA and on on July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill that creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He called the signing an [sic] historic step, further equipping the United States for leadership in the space age.
Since the end of World War II, the United States had worked to make breakthroughs in rocket science. Eisenhower’s particular legislation expanded the original National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) into NASA. NASA research, which was generously funded by Eisenhower’s successors, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and was responsible for successful and groundbreaking American achievements such as the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969 and the development of the space shuttle, first launched in 1981.
More recently, NASA has sent robotic exploratory missions to Mars and launched a spacecraft to view Pluto. NASA’s research has also contributed to advances in consumer-oriented goods such as telecommunications satellites and computer technology.
Although NASA currently engages in cooperative projects with other nations, Eisenhower at the time had to add a cautionary note when signing the legislation that created the new agency. He warned that NASA’s research into peaceful projects could be shared only when international treaties outlining such projects were authorized first by the president and the U.S. Senate. Ike, the former Army general who oversaw the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II, wanted to ensure that NASA would not share information that was vital to national security.
NASA continued its explorations until President Barack Obama shut it down.
On July 29, 1965 the first 4,000 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay. They made a demonstration jump immediately after arriving, observed by General William Westmoreland and outgoing Ambassador (formerly General) Maxwell Taylor. Taylor and Westmoreland were both former commanders of the division, which was known as the “Screaming Eagles.” The 101st Airborne Division has a long and storied history, including combat jumps during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, and the subsequent Market-Garden airborne operation in the Netherlands. Later, the division distinguished itself by its defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.
The 1st Brigade fought as a separate brigade until 1967, when the remainder of the division arrived in Vietnam. The combat elements of the division consisted of 10 battalions of airmobile infantry, six battalions of artillery, an aerial rocket artillery unit armed with rocket-firing helicopters, and an air reconnaissance unit. Another unique feature of the division was its aviation group, which consisted of three aviation battalions of assault helicopters and gunships.
The majority of the 101st Airborne Division’s tactical operations were in the Central Highlands and in the A Shau Valley farther north. Among its major operations was the brutal fight for Ap Bia Mountain, known as the “Hamburger Hill” battle.
The last Army division to leave Vietnam, the remaining elements of the 101st Airborne Division returned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where today it is the Army’s only airmobile division. During the war, troopers from the 101st won 17 Medals of Honor for bravery in combat. The division suffered almost 20,000 soldiers killed or wounded in action in Vietnam, over twice as many as the 9,328 casualties it suffered in World War II.
On July 29, 1967, fire swept the U.S. aircraft carrier Forrestal off the coast of North Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin. It was the worst U.S. naval disaster in a combat zone since World War II. The accident took the lives of 134 crewmen and injured 62 more. Of the carrier’s 80 planes, 21 were destroyed and 42 were damaged. The deadly fire on the USS Forrestal began with the accidental launch of a rocket.
During the Vietnam War, the USS Forrestal was often stationed off the coast of North Vietnam, conducting combat operations. On the morning of July 29, the ship was preparing to attack when a rocket from one of its own F-4 Phantom jet fighters was accidentally launched. The rocket streaked across the deck and hit a parked A-4 Skyhawk jet. The Skyhawk, which was waiting to take off, was piloted by John McCain, the future senator from Arizona.
Fuel from the Skyhawk spilled out and caught fire. The fire then spread to nearby planes on the ship’s deck and detonated a 1,000-pound bomb, which killed many of the initial firefighters and further spread the fire. A chain reaction of explosions blew holes in the flight deck and had half the large ship on fire at one point. Many pilots were trapped in their planes as the fire spread. It took a full day before the fires could be fully contained.
Along with the hundreds of sailors that were seriously injured and 134 who lost their lives in the devastating fire, twenty planes were destroyed. Temporary repairs were made to the ship in the Philippines before the Forrestal headed back to Norfolk, Virginia. It was repaired and put back into service the following April, but never returned to Vietnam.
John McCain narrowly escaped the fire and, afterwards, volunteered for duty on the USS Oriskany. Just three months later, his plane was shot down over North Vietnam and he was taken prisoner. He was not released until five-and-a-half years later, in 1973, having undergone hideous torture. McCain was offered his freedom from prison and North Vietnam years before he left with all his fellow prisoners. But he would not leave without them.
- On that very same day – July 29, 1967 – During the fourth day of celebrating its 400th anniversary, the city of Caracas, Venezuela is shaken by an earthquake, leaving approximately 500 dead.
On this day The Doors scored their first #1 hit with “Light My Fire”.
By the beginning of 1967, The Doors were well-established members of the Los Angeles music scene. As the house band at the Whiskey a Go Go on the Sunset Strip, they had built a large local following and strong industry buzz, and out on the road, they were fast becoming known as a band that might typically receive third billing, but could blow better-known groups like The Young Rascals and The Grateful Dead off the stage. It would have been poetic if their popular breakthrough had come via their now-classic debut single, “Break On Through,” but that record failed to make the national sales charts despite the efforts of Jim Morrison and his bandmates to fuel the song’s popularity by repeatedly calling in requests for it to local L.A. radio stations. It was the follow-up release from their debut album, The Doors, which would become their first bona fide smash. “Light My Fire,” which earned the top spot in the Billboard Hot 100 on this day in 1967, transformed The Doors from cult favorites of the rock connoisseurs into international pop stars and avatars of the 60s counterculture.
As “Light My Fire” climbed the charts in June and early July, The Doors were out on the East Coast, still plugging away as an opening act for Simon and Garfunkel in Forest Hills, Queens’ and other big-name rock stars, and as sometime-headliners in a Greenwich, Connecticut, high-school auditorium and other such places.
When the group topped the charts in late July, Jim Morrison celebrated by buying his now-famous skintight black-leather suit and beginning to hobnob with the likes of the iconic model/muse Nico at drug-fueled parties held by Andy Warhol.
Attempting to keep Morrison grounded were not only his fellow Doors Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and John Densmore, as well as the professional manager they had hired in part to “babysit” him, but also his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson, who is quoted in Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman’s Doors biography No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980) as greeting the sight of Jim Morrison preening in front of a mirror at home before a show in the summer of 1967 with, “Oh Jim, are you going to wear the same leather pants again? You never change your clothes. You’re beginning to smell, did you know that?”
In the end, of course, Morrison’s heavy drinking and drug use would lead to increasingly erratic behavior over the next four years and eventually take his life in July 1971. During that period, The Doors would follow up “Light My Fire” with a string of era-defining albums and songs.
On July 29, 1972 former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark visits North Vietnam as a member of the International Commission of Inquiry into U.S. War Crimes in Indochina. This commission was formed to investigate alleged U.S. bombing of non-military targets in North Vietnam. Clark reported over Hanoi radio that he had seen damage to hospitals, dikes, schools, and civilian areas. His visit stirred intense controversy at home. Nothing ever came of Clark’s claims, but he was lauded by antiwar activists for pointing out the damage done by the U.S. bombing attacks. Other Americans condemned Clark as a traitor and liar to the United States.
July 29, 1976, the so-called “Son of Sam” pulled a gun from a paper bag and fired five shots at Donna Lauria and Jody Valenti of the Bronx while they are sitting in a car, talking. Lauria died and Valenti was seriously wounded in the first in a series of shootings by the serial killer, who terrorized New York City over the course of the next year.
Once dubbed the “.44 Caliber Killer,” the Son of Sam eventually got his name from letters he sent to both the police and famed newspaper writer Jimmy Breslin that said, “…I am a monster. I am the Son of Sam. I love to hunt, prowling the streets looking for fair game. The weman are prettyist of all [sic]…”
The second attack came on October 23, 1976, when a couple was shot as they sat in a car in Queens. A month later, two girls were talking on a stoop outside a home when the serial killer approached, asked for directions, and then suddenly pulled a gun out and fired several shots. Joanne Lomino was paralyzed from a bullet that struck her spine, but her friend was not seriously injured.
The Son of Sam attacked again in January and March of 1977. In the latter attack, witnesses provided a description of the killer: an unattractive white man with black hair. After yet another shooting in the Bronx in April, the publicity hit a fever pitch. Women, particularly those with dark hair, were discouraged from traveling at night in the city.
When the Son of Sam missed his intended victims in another murder attempt in June, vigilante groups formed across New York City looking for the killer. His last two victims were shot on July 31, 1977, in Brooklyn; one died. Then, police following up on a parking ticket that had been given out that night discovered a machine gun in a car belonging to David Berkowitz of Yonkers, New York.
When questioned, Berkowitz explained that “Sam” was his neighbor Sam Carr–an agent of the devil. Sam transmitted his orders through his pet black Labrador. Years earlier, Berkowitz had shot the dog, complaining that its barking was keeping him from sleeping. After the dog recovered, Berkowitz claimed that it began speaking to him and demanding that he kill people.
In an unusual sequence of events, Berkowitz was allowed to plead guilty before claiming insanity and was sentenced to over 300 years in prison. In prison, he later claimed to have become a born-again Christian.
On this day in 1981 nearly one billion television viewers in 74 countries tuned in to witness the marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, to Lady Diana Spencer, a young English schoolteacher. Married in a grand ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in the presence of 2,650 guests, the couple’s romance was for the moment the envy of the world. Their first child, Prince William, was born in 1982, and their second, Prince Harry, in 1984.
Before long, however, the fairy-tale couple grew apart, an experience that was particularly painful under the prying eyes of the world’s tabloid media. Diana and Charles announced a separation in 1992, though they continued to carry out their royal duties. In August 1996, two months after Queen Elizabeth II urged the couple to divorce, the prince and princess reached a final agreement. In exchange for a generous settlement, and the right to retain her apartments at Kensington Palace and her title of “princess,” Diana agreed to relinquish the title of “Her Royal Highness” and any future claims to the British throne.
In the year following the divorce, the popular princess seemed well on her way of achieving her dream of becoming “a queen in people’s hearts,” but on August 31, 1997, she was killed with her companion Dodi Fayed in a car accident in Paris. Tests conducted by French police indicated that the driver, who also died in the crash, was intoxicated and likely caused the accident while trying to escape the paparazzi photographers who consistently tailed Diana during any public outing.
On April 9, 2005, Prince Charles wed his longtime mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, in a private civil ceremony. The ceremony had originally been planned for April 8, but had to be rescheduled so as not to conflict with the funeral of Pope John Paul II. After the civil ceremony, which the queen did not attend, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams blessed the union on behalf of the Church of England in a separate blessing ceremony. An estimated 750 guests attended the event, which was held at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor and was attended by both of Charles’ parents, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
Though Camilla technically became the Princess of Wales with the marriage, she has announced her preference for the title Duchess of Cornwall, in deference to the beloved late princess. Should Charles become king, she will become Queen Camilla, though she has already announced her intention to use the title Princess Consort, most likely in response to public opinion polls showing resistance to the idea of a Queen Camilla.
- July 29, 1967 – During the fourth day of celebrating its 400th anniversary, the city of Caracas, Venezuela is shaken by an earthquake, leaving approximately 500 dead.
- American gangster Mickey Cohen died in prison while asleep on July 29, 1976, at the age of 63. His girlfriend spent three years in prison because she wouldn’t inform on him.
- On this day in 1987 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand signed the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel – the Eurotunnel).
On this day in 1996, track and field legend Carl Lewis at 35 wins his fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the long jump. It was the ninth and final Olympic gold of his storied career.
Frederick Carlton Lewis was born July 11, 1961, in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in a middle-class community in New Jersey. As a teenager, Lewis met Olympic champion Jesse Owens, who became his hero. He participated in track and field, but was undersized until high school, when he grew the long legs that help a sprinter cover ground and underwent a huge growth spurt that forced him to walk with crutches for three months while he fine-tuned his gait. Once fully developed at 6 feet 2 inches tall, Lewis set a national high school record in the long jump with a 26-foot-8-inch leap.
After a standout career at the University of Houston, Lewis won the 100 meters, 200 meters and the long jump at the 1983 National Championships, and entered the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles as the top-ranked sprinter in the world. There, he met his goal of four gold medals, winning the long jump, the 100 meters, the 200 meters and anchoring the victorious U.S. team in the 4 x 100 meter relay.
Four years later, at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Lewis lost the 100 meters to Canada’s Ben Johnson but won gold in the long jump with a distance of 28’ 7frac 14”. But after it was found he had used performance-enhancing drugs, Johnson was stripped of the gold medal, which was then awarded to Lewis.
The 1992 Olympics–the third of his career–was another triumph for Lewis. He again brought home gold in the 4 x 100 meter relay and in the long jump–his third long jump gold in a row–this time with a distance of 28’ 5frac12.
By the time the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta rolled around, Lewis was 35 years old. Though he was still admired around the world for his previous Olympic triumphs, he had barely managed to qualify for the U.S. team in the long jump and most experts believed he’d be lucky to medal, let alone win another gold. Going into the last of his three jumps, Lewis trailed Emmanuel Bangue of France and his leading jump of 26’ 10 ½” by two inches. Lewis took off cleanly after a smooth sprint and landed face down, but knowing instinctively that the jump had secured him first place, he quickly got to his feet and raised his arms in triumph. His mark of 27’ 10 ¾” was his longest in two years–a full foot ahead of Bangue—and good enough for his fourth consecutive gold in the long jump.
The win at Atlanta made Lewis the first Olympian since American discus thrower Al Oerter to win the same event four times. His career is considered among the greatest in track and field history.
| 1990 | The Boston Red Sox hit 12 doubles in a game, setting major league record. |
On this day in 2000, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, one of Hollywood’s highest-profile couples, marry at the Malibu, California, estate of the producer Marcy Carsey who had also produced The Cosby Show. The two actors reportedly met on a blind date in 1998 and quickly became favorites of the tabloid media once they went public with their romance. Their wedding cost an estimated $1 million and featured tight security to keep out the paparazzi.
Pitt, who was born in 1963 in Oklahoma, rose to fame in the early 1990s with roles in such films as Thelma & Louise (1991), A River Runs Through It (1992) and Kalifornia (1993). He went on to build a long list of starring movie credits, including Fight Club (1999), Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and Babel (2006).
Aniston, who was born in 1969 in California, became famous for her role as Rachel Green on the hit TV sitcom Friends, which aired from 1994 to 2004. The actress has also made a number of movies, including The Good Girl (2002), Bruce Almighty (2003) and Rumor Has It (2005).
Despite their reputation as one of Hollywood’s golden couples, rumors eventually began to circulate that Aniston and Pitt were having problems. In 2004, speculation swirled that Pitt had become romantically involved with Angelina Jolie, his co-star in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). Over the New Year, Pitt and Aniston were photographed walking hand-in-hand on the beach in Anguilla, yet just days later, while they were still on vacation, a joint statement was issued announcing their separation. Though it seemed to be an amicable breakup, the press speculated that Pitt had wanted to have a family and Aniston–who had recently wrapped up a 10-year-run with Friends and had begun appearing in more films–was reluctant to take a break in her career for motherhood. Pitt was also depicted as being increasingly involved in global charity work, including the AIDS crisis in Africa.
Analysis of the breakup only intensified that spring, after Pitt was photographed with Jolie, a UNICEF representative, and her adopted son at a beach resort in Africa. Soon, they emerged as a full-blown couple, posing as a 1960s-era husband and wife (with a brood of blond children) for a 60-page photo spread titled “Domestic Bliss” in the July 2005 issue of W magazine. Outraged Aniston fans and friends denounced Pitt (who had in fact come up with the concept for the photo spread himself) as insensitive, and Jolie as a glamorous homewrecker. Novelty T-shirts at the time advertised their wearers as belonging to “Team Aniston” or “Team Jolie”; according to Vanity Fair, Aniston T-shirts outsold Jolies 25 to one.
Aniston and Pitt’s divorce was finalized in October 2005. In January 2006, Jolie announced she was pregnant with Pitt’s child; soon after, the news broke that Pitt had successfully adopted Jolie’s children Maddox and Zahara, whose surnames were legally changed to Jolie-Pitt. Jolie gave birth to a baby girl, Shiloh, in May 2006. In March of the following year, Jolie and Pitt adopted another son, Pax Thien, from Vietnam. In July 2008, Jolie and Pitt had twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.
Angelina Jolie has now become one of the greatest Hollywood directors of this decade. Last year she directed her husband, Brad, in one of the greatest war movies ever – Fury.
- 1996 – The child protection portion of the Communications Decency Act is struck down by a U.S. federal court as too broad.
| July 29, 2005 | Astronomers announce discovery of dwarf planet Eris, leading the International Astronomic Union to clarify the definition of a planet. |
The Declaration of Montreal on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Human Rights is a document adopted in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on July 29, 2006, by the International Conference on LGBT Human Rights. The Declaration has also been adopted by the City Councils of:[14]
- Montreal, Canada
- Barcelona, Spain
- San Francisco, United States
- Denver, United States
- Sydney, Australia
- The United States Supreme Court in 2015
And finally….. Today, July 29, 2015 –
The rhinoceros was down to its last six members last fall. Then there were five. Now, with the death of a northern white rhino in a Czech zoo today, there are just four of the animals left in a species already past the point of no return.
Nabire, a 31-year-old female, died Monday in the same zoo where she was born; she was unable to produce offspring because she suffered from uterine cysts, one of which ended up killing her, Live Science reports.
“The pathological cyst inside the body of Nabire was huge. There was no way to treat it,” said the zoo’s rhino curator in a statement.
“Her death is a symbol of the catastrophic decline of rhinos due to a senseless human greed,” the zoo’s director said, per AFP. “Her species is on the very brink of extinction.” With the death of Nabire, the only remaining northern white rhinos are three females who are unable to breed—an elderly female at the San Diego Zoo and two in Kenya—and the last surviving male, who’s also at the Kenyan conservancy, where a last-ditch breeding effort to save the species failed, the APreports.
In a Facebook post, the San Diego Zoo offered its condolences to the Czech zoo and said that instead of giving up on the species, it’s collecting genetic material so the rhino’s genome can be preserved.
The Czech zoo removed Nabire’s healthy left ovary after her death, and the zoo’s statement notes that the ultimate goal would be to generate northern white rhino embryos and transfer them into a closely related surrogate: the southern white rhino.
But scientists have not yet developed IVF procedures that work for rhinos, Live Science notes.
Ray’s Today in History – July 29
Ray"s Today in History - July 29