Today is Thursday, July 24, the 205th day of 2025
with 160 to follow.
The moon is new. Morning stars are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn.
On this date in history:
In 1679, New Hampshire became a royal colony of the British crown.
In 1847, after 17 months and many miles of travel, Brigham Young led 148 Mormon pioneers into Utah's Valley of the Great Salt Lake.
In 1956, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis performed together for the last time on stage at the Copacabana in New York City. In his 2005 memoir, Lewis described his former partner as one of the greatest comedic talents of all time.
In 1969, Apollo 11 returned to Earth, ending its historic moon-landing mission. After the spacecraft's splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were flown by helicopter to the recovery ship USS Hornet.
In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President Richard Nixon should surrender White House tapes for the criminal trials of his former associates.
In 1983, George Brett of the Kansas City Royals had a home run nullified in the "Pine Tar Incident" after New York Yankees Manager Billy Martin had Brett's bat examined by umpires. The Royals filed a protest and the home run was later reinstated.
In 1998, a gunman opened fire at the Capitol in Washington, killing two police officers and wounding a tourist. Police shot the gunman, Russell Eugene Weston Jr., who survived. He was later charged with murder and has been confined to a psychiatric institution.
In 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives expelled Rep. James Traficant, an Ohio Democrat, by a vote of 420-1. Traficant, who had been convicted of racketeering, bribery and corruption, served seven years in prison.
In 2005, Lance Armstrong won a record seventh consecutive Tour de France. All seven wins were voided in 2012 after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency concluded he had used performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career. The official record holder for most consecutive wins is Miguel Induráin with five.
In 2009, an increase in the federal minimum wage, from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour, went into effect. Representatives of small businesses said the increase would threaten their survival.
In 2011, hundreds of gay couples in formal suits and gowns, and T-shirts recited vows after New York became the sixth and largest state to recognize same-sex weddings.
In 2014, an Air Algerie plane carrying 118 people dropped from radar en route to Algiers from Ouagadougou, the capital of the West African country of Burkina Faso, and crashed in Mali. There were no survivors.
In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission charged Facebook a record-breaking $5 billion penalty for violating a 2012 order related to fooling users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information.
In 2024, the movie Inside Out 2 surpassed Frozen II to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time. That record stood until 2025, when Chinese film Ne Zha 2 earned a worldwide gross of $2.2 billion.
