July 19, 1966: Ohio Governor James Rhodes declares a state of emergency, due to a Cleveland race riot.
July 19, 1977: The world’s first GPS signal is received. The GPS constellation of 24 satellites went live on this date.
July 19, 1976: Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
Sagarmatha is the Nepali name for Mt. Everest. It means Goddess of the Sky.
Chomolungma Is the Tibetan name for Mt. Everest. It means Mother Goddess of the Earth.
Mt. Everest was discovered to be the tallest mountain in the world by British surveyors. At the time of the survey it was called simply Peak XV. Andrew Waugh was the British Surveyor General of India and he decided to name the mountain after his predecessor, Sir George Everest.
Sir George Everest pronounced his name EEV-rest.
July 20, 2005: The Civil Marriage Act legalizes same-sex marriage in Canada, ten years before the U.S.
July 20, 1976: The American Viking 1 lander successfully landed on Mars. It was the first successful Mars lander in history. Viking 1 operated on Mars for 2307 days (over 6¼ years) or 2245 Martian solar days, the longest Mars surface mission until the record was broken by the Opportunity rover on May 19, 2010. The last contact with Viking 1 was on November 11, 1982.
July 21, 1925: The “Scopes” Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.
July 21, 2011: NASA’s Space Shuttle program ended with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
July 27, 1974: The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee voted 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment for obstruction of justice against President Richard Nixon.
Under the United States Constitution, the House of Representatives has the sole power of impeachments while the Senate has the sole power to try impeachments (i.e., to acquit or convict); the validity of an impeachment trial is a political question that is nonjusticiable (i.e…, is not reviewable by the courts). In the United States, impeachment is a remedial rather than penal process,: 8 intended to “effectively ‘maintain constitutional government’ by removing individuals unfit for office”;: 8 persons subject to impeachment and removal remain “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”
“… no person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present" (Article I, section 3). The president, vice president, and all civil officers of the United States are subject to impeachment.”
Impeachment process summary
(U.S. Senate: About Impeachment)
● The House of Representatives charges an official of the federal government by approving, by simple majority vote, articles of impeachment
● The House of Representatives sends its articles of impeachment to the Senate
● The Senate sits as a High Court of Impeachment to consider evidence, hear witnesses, and vote to acquit or convict the impeached official
● The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate to convict, and the penalty for an impeached official upon conviction is removal from office. In some cases, the Senate has also disqualified such officials from holding public offices in the future. There is no appeal. Since 1789 about half of Senate impeachment trials have resulted in conviction and removal from office.
July 27, 1940: Bugs Bunny was introduced when the cartoon short “A Wild Hare” was released. Elmer Fudd was also featured. Elmer Fudd had already been introduced, in 1937.
July 28, 1945 – A B-25 Mitchell bomber, flying in thick fog in New York City, crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26. The pilot had asked for clearance to land at Newark Metropolitan Airport in New Jersey. He was advised that there was zero visibility, but he proceeded anyway. The resulting fire was extinguished in 40 minutes and is the highest structural fire to be brought under control by firefighters.
Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver was thrown from her elevator car on the 80th floor and suffered severe burns. First aid workers placed her on another elevator car to transport her to the ground floor, but the cables supporting that elevator had been damaged in the incident, and it fell 75 stories, ending up in the basement. Oliver survived the fall but had a broken pelvis, back and neck when rescuers found her amongst the rubble. This remains the world record for the longest survived elevator fall.
There was no structural damage to the building. The damage caused was estimated at $1 million, equivalent to $15 million today.
August 1, 2007: The eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, collapsed into the Mississippi River during evening peak period, killing 13 people.
August 3, 1977 — the Tandy TRS-80 desktop computer was announced by Tandy. At the time it was called a microcomputer. This Tandy Radio Shack Z80 had an 8-bit microprocessor called the Z80 with 2.5 MHz clock rate, and 4 KB memory. The Z80 microprocessor became one of the most widely used CPUs in desktop computers and home computers from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
August 5, 1957: The teenage dance show “American Bandstand”, hosted by Dick Clark, made its network debut on ABC-TV.
07 August 1909 — Alice Huyler Ramsey made history as the first woman to drive across the United States.
In 1908 her husband had bought her a new Maxwell runabout. That summer she drove over 6,000 miles near their Hackensack home. In September 1908 she drove one of the in the Montauk Point endurance race. She was one of only two women to participate.
In 1909 Alice Ramsey was 22. She was a Vassar alumna, a housewife and a mother. She brought passengers on her cross-country road trip, but none of them could drive. She left Hell Gate in Manhattan NY on 09 June and drove 3,800 miles to San Francisco where she arrived on 07 August, about 3 weeks later than planned.
In 2000 she became the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.
On August 7, 1909, Alice Huyler Ramsey and her three passengers became the first women to complete a coast-to-coast automobile trip when they arrived in San Francisco 59 days after leaving New York City. Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife, and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, made the 3,800-mile (6,115.5-kilometer) trek in a green Maxwell DA touring car. She was accompanied by her sisters-in-law Nettie Powell and Margaret Atwood as well as her friend Hermine Jahns, none of whom knew how to drive. Their cross-country journey took place as a publicity stunt for the automaker Maxwell-Briscoe Company.
While Ramsey and her passengers relied heavily on maps from the American Automobile Association (AAA) during their trip, they also followed telephone poles along the way as another means of navigation from one community to the next. Their transcontinental trek was made even more challenging because only 152 miles (244 kilometers) of the roads they traveled on were paved.
Along with serving as the driver, Ramsey handled a host of other responsibilities. She changed a total of 11 tires; cleaned the spark plugs; and repaired a broken brake pedal. As if that wasn’t enough, she and the others also came across the trail of a manhunt for a murderer in Nebraska; had to deal with bedbugs in a hotel in Wyoming; and found themselves surrounded by a Native American hunting party with bows and arrows drawn in Nevada.
At the end of their adventurous journey, they were greeted with great fanfare at San Francisco’s St. James Hotel. Ramsey recounted her pioneering road trip in her book Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron. She was named the “Woman Motorist of the Century” by AAA in 1960. Between 1909 and 1975, Ramsey drove across the United States at least 30 more times. She died in 1983 at the age of 96. In 2000, Ramsey became the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.
07 August 2007 — At AT&T Park in San Francisco, the Giants’ Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run to surpass Hank Aaron’s 33-year-old record of 755.
Exactly 40 years ago today:
07 August 1982 — Jim Rice, right fielder for the Boston Red Sox, saved a 4 year old boy’s life when the boy was stuck in the head with a foul ball.
The Chicago White Sox were visiting Boston’s Fenway Park. In the bottom of the 4th inning, with the score tied 2-2 and no outs, and Carney Langford on 2nd and Wade Boggs on 1st after back-to-back singles, Reds Sox shortstop Dave Stapleton was at the plate facing White Sox right handed starting pitcher Richard Dotson.
Dave Stapleton fouled a pitch back into the stands. There were no screens or nets protecting the fans back then. The foul ball came screaming in so fast that nobody could react to try and block the ball’s flight. It struck 4 year old Jonathan Keane in the head.
Jim Rice, in the Boston dugout at the time, realized that it would take paramedics precious minutes to get to the boy. He climbed into the stands and carried the boy into the Red Sox dugout for the team’s medical staff to render immediate aid.
By the time Rice arrived, the Red Sox team physician, Dr. Arthur Pappas, who had witnessed the incident, had also made his way to the dugout. Dr. Pappas immediately called Boston Children’s Hospital as their medical team did what they could to aid the child. Within three minutes of Jonathan being struck by the ball, he was placed into an ambulance and en route to the hospital.
Jonathan underwent emergency surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain caused by swelling. Jonathan’s doctors stated that the quick actions taken by Rice resulted in much quicker medical attention being given than if he had to have waited for EMTs in the stands. Rice probably saved his life or at least prevented permanent brain damage.
Jonathan was initially in critical condition and remained in the hospital for five days. He has no memory of that day but has a small scar above his eye as a reminder.
After the game, the press labeled him a hero and when they asked him about the incident, he stated, “If it was your kid, what would you do?”
Rice visited Jonathan in the hospital, and after realizing his family’s financial state, stopped by the business office on his way out and directed them to send all medical bills to him.
Game box score:
Jim Rice carrying Jonathan Keane:
August 8, 1937: American movie actor Dustin Hoffman was born.
48 years ago today.
09 August 1974 — President Richard Milhous Nixon resigned as the 37th POTUS. His resignation was effective at noon. The Watergate scandal was nearing its end.
I delivered this newspaper that morning. The Hartford Courant, America’s oldest continuously published newspaper (since 1764). In my years delivering the Courant I’d never seen a headline that big.
Within the previous week the White House had released what became known as the ‘smoking gun’ tape, a recording from the Oval Office with Nixon and HR Haldeman acknowledging the break-in and their attempts to cover it up.
This ‘smoking gun’ tape led immediately to Nixon’s resignation.
10 August 1948 — debut of the TV show, Candid Camera.
Candid Camera initially began on radio as The Candid Microphone in 1947. It was created by Allen Funt, who previously had been a writer for the Truth or Consequences radio show. Funt also assisted Eleanor Roosevelt with her radio commentaries.
Candid Camera ran from 1948 until 2014, and through those over 60 years its hosts included:
Allen Funt (1948–92)
Arthur Godfrey (1960–61)
Durward Kirby (1961–66)
Dorothy Collins (1961–63)
Bess Myerson (1966–1967)
John Bartholomew Tucker (1974–1975)
Phyllis George (1975–1976)
Joann Pflug (1976–1979)
Dom DeLuise (1991–1992)
Eva LaRue (1991–1992)
Peter Funt (1996–2004; 2014)
Suzanne Somers (1997–2000)
Dina Eastwood (2001–2004)
Mayim Bialik (2014)
11 August 1964 — The Beatles’ movie “A Hard Day’s Night” premieres in the US in New York. It had had its world premiere in London on 06 July 1964. The film was a financial and critical success and was nominated for two Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay. Forty years after its release, Time magazine rated it as one of the 100 all-time great films.
