Today is Tuesday, July 8, the 189th day of 2025
with 176 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus. Evening stars are Mercury, Neptune, Saturn and Venus.
On this date in history:
In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read in public for the first time, to people gathered at Philadelphia's Independence Square.
In 1835, the Liberty Bell cracked while being rung during the funeral of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall in Philadelphia.
In 1909, the Wright Brothers demonstrated their airplane for an enthusiastic crowd at Fort Myer, Virginia.
In 1950, U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur was designated commander of U.N. forces in Korea.
In 1951, Paris celebrated its 2,000th birthday. The city was founded sometime around 250 A.D. by a Gallic tribe known as the Parisii.
In 1969, U.S. troops began withdrawing from Vietnam.
In 1991, Yugoslav leaders signed an accord calling for an internationally observed cease-fire in Slovenia and Croatia.
In 1994, North Korean President Kim Il Sung died at age 82. He had led the country since its founding in 1948.
In 2009, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, benefiting from a robust economy, was easily re-elected.
In 2010, a French surgeon said he had performed the first successful transplant of a complete face, giving a 35-year-old disfigured man every feature, including tear ducts.
In 2011, space shuttle Atlantis began the 135th and final mission of the U.S. space shuttle program that started in 1981, a two-week voyage to the International Space Station with a cargo of supplies and spare parts.
In 2014, in an escalating conflict, Israeli airstrikes pounded the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and rockets were fired at Israel. A statement from the military said the strikes were made to "stop the terror Israel's citizens face on a daily basis." The airstrikes began a 50-day war between the two sides.
In 2019, the so-called "Terminator" of the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- Bosco Ntaganda -- was found guilty of war crimes by the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands.
In 2022, Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving prime minister who retired from office in 2020 after a bout of health problems, was shot dead at a train station while making a campaign speech for a parliamentary candidate.
In 2024, Hurricane Beryl made landfall in southeast Texas as a Category 1 storm. The storm was responsible for more than 70 deaths after slamming parts of the Caribbean, the Yucatán Peninsula and the United States.
