June 27, 1880: Helen Keller is born.
June 27, 1941: Romanian authorities launch one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history in the city of Iași, resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews.
July 3, 1940: To stop ships from falling into German hands, the French fleet of the Atlantic based at Mers El Kébir is bombarded by the British fleet, coming from Gibraltar, causing the loss of three battleships: Dunkerque, Provence and French battleship Bretagne. One thousand two hundred sailors perish.
July 4, 1826: Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, dies the same day as John Adams, second president of the United States, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence.
July 5, 1937: Spam is introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.
July 7, 1940: Richard Starkey LKA Ringo Starr is born in Liverpool, England, UK.
July 7, 1928: Sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor’s 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.
July 8, 1932: The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.
July 9, 1868: The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.
July 14, 2011: Neptune completes its first orbit of the sun since the planet was discovered in 1846.
July 16, 1941: Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as an MLB record.
July 18, 1863 - During the Civil War, Union troops spearheaded by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, made up of Black soldiers, charged Confederate-held Fort Wagner on Morris Island, S.C. The Confederates were able to repel the Northerners, who suffered heavy losses; the 54th’s commander, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, was among those who were killed.
Link to Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Beacon Hill at Boston Common:
July 18, 1969: U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy crashes his car into a tidal basin at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing his passenger, campaign specialist Mary Jo Kopechne.
July 20, 1934: “Bloody Friday” in Minneapolis occurs when police open fire on striking teamster picketers. 2 are killed and another 65 injured.
July 20, 1960: The U.S.S.R. recovers two dogs; first living organisms to return from space (there were earlier ones that were not recovered).
July 27, 1890: Vincent van Gogh shoots himself, and dies two days later.
July 28, 1945: A U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26. One engine shot through the side opposite the impact and flew as far as the next block, where it landed on the roof of a nearby building, starting a fire that destroyed a penthouse. The other engine and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded.
Ms. Oliver lived until 1999.
July 30, 1975: Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again.
July 31, 1703: Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.
July 31, 1980 — fictional boy wizard Harry Potter born, according to the popular series of books by J.K. Rowling. This would make him 41 ‘Muggle’ years of age, although it is never said what the usual life expectancy of those with magical powers might be.
We do know, however – again, according to the Potterverse canon – that Albus Dumbledore (the half-blood headmaster of Hogwarts) was born in 1881, making him over 110 years old in ‘Muggle’ years when he died as a result of the Killing Curse during the Battle of the Astronomy Tower in 1997, and that Nicholas Flamel was over 650 ‘Muggle’ years of age when he died … although that was achieved through liberal use of the Elixir of Life.
-“BB”-