Today is Tuesday, July 14, the 196th day of 2020. There are 170 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 14, 2016, terror struck Bastille Day celebrations in the French Riviera city of Nice (nees) as a large truck plowed into a festive crowd, killing 86 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State extremists; the driver was shot dead by police.
On this date:
In 1789, in an event symbolizing the start of the French Revolution, citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside.
In 1798, Congress passed the Sedition Act, making it a federal crime to publish false, scandalous or malicious writing about the United States government.
In 1865, the Matterhorn, straddling Italy and Switzerland, was summited as a seven-member rope party led by British climber Edward Whymper reached the peak. (Four members of the party fell to their deaths during their descent; Whymper and two guides survived.)
In 1914, scientist Robert H. Goddard received a U.S. patent for a liquid-fueled rocket apparatus.
In 1921, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco (SAH’-koh) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were convicted in Dedham, Massachusetts, of murdering a shoe company paymaster and his guard. (Sacco and Vanzetti were executed six years later.)
In 1933, all German political parties, except the Nazi Party, were outlawed.
In 1960, British researcher Jane Goodall arrived at the Gombe (GAHM’-bay) Stream Reserve in the Tanganyika Territory (in present-day Tanzania) to begin her famous study of chimpanzees in the wild.
In 1980, the Republican national convention opened in Detroit, where nominee-apparent Ronald Reagan told a welcoming rally he and his supporters were determined to “make America great again.”
In 2004, the Senate scuttled a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. (Forty-eight senators voted to advance the measure — 12 short of the 60 needed — and 50 voted to block it).
In 2009, disgraced financier Bernard Madoff arrived at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina to begin serving a 150-year sentence for his massive Ponzi scheme.
In 2013, thousands of demonstrators across the country protested a Florida jury’s decision the day before to clear George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
In 2014, the Church of England voted overwhelmingly in favor of allowing women to become bishops.
