Today is Tuesday, July 7, the 189th day of 2020. There are 177 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 7, 1865, four people were hanged in Washington, D.C. for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln: Lewis Powell (aka Lewis Payne), David Herold, George Atzerodt and Mary Surratt, the first woman to be executed by the federal government.
On this date:
In 1846, U.S. annexation of California was proclaimed at Monterey (mahn-tuh-RAY’) after the surrender of a Mexican garrison.
In 1898, the United States annexed Hawaii.
In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War erupted into full-scale conflict as Imperial Japanese forces attacked the Marco Polo Bridge in Beijing.
In 1941, U.S. forces took up positions in Iceland, Trinidad and British Guiana to forestall any Nazi invasion, even though the United States had not yet entered the Second World War.
In 1948, six female U.S. Navy reservists became the first women to be sworn in to the regular Navy.
In 1954, Elvis Presley made his radio debut as Memphis, Tennessee, station WHBQ played his first recording for Sun Records, “That’s All Right.”
In 1963, a Navy jet fighter from Willow Grove Naval Air Station in Pennsylvania crashed into a picnic area, killing seven people; the pilot, who ejected, survived.
In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford and the first lady hosted a White House dinner for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. The United States Military Academy at West Point included female cadets for the first time as 119 women joined the Class of 1980.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1983, 11-year-old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, left for a visit to the Soviet Union at the personal invitation of Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov (ahn-DROH’-pawf).
In 2005, terrorist bombings in three Underground stations and a double-decker bus killed 52 victims and four bombers in the worst attack on London since World War II.
In 2009, some 20,000 people gathered inside Staples Center in Los Angeles for a memorial service honoring the late Michael Jackson, who was tearfully described by his 11-year-old daughter, Paris-Michael, as “the best father you could ever imagine.”
