This Week In Recent History ~ July 15-July 21

This Week In Recent History:

Highlighting Some of the Events In Recent History
For the Week of July 15 - July 21

Our Nostalgic Memories ....

July 15

1965 - The spacecraft Mariner IV sent back the first close-up pictures of the planet Mars.

1968 - ABC-TV premiered "One Life to Live".
1968 - Commercial air travel began between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., when the first plane, a Soviet Aeroflot jet, landed at Kennedy International Airport in New York.
1971 - U.S. President Nixon announced he would visit the People's Republic of China to seek a "normalization of relations."

President Nixon

1973 - Nolan Ryan (California Angels) became the first pitcher in two decades to win two no-hitters in a season. (California)
1981 - Steven Ford, son of former President Gerald R. Ford, appeared in a seduction scene of "The Young and the Restless" on CBS-TV. Ford played the part of Andy.

Steven Ford

1985 - Baseball players voted to strike on August 6th if no contract was reached with baseball owners. The strike turned out to be just a one-day interruption.
1987 - Taiwan ended thirty-seven years of martial law.
2009 - "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was released in theaters in the U.S. It was the sixth movie in the series.

July 16

1945 - The United States detonated the first atomic bomb in a test at Alamogordo, NM.
1950 - The largest crowd in sporting history was 199,854. They watched the Uruguay defeat Brazil in the World Cup soccer finals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
1951 - J.D. Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye" was first published.

1957 - Marine Major John Glenn set a transcontinental speed record when he flew a jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds.
1964 - Little League Baseball Incorporated was granted a Federal Charter unanimously by the United States Senate and House of Representatives.
1969 - Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, FL, and began the first manned mission to land on the moon.

1970 - The Pittsburgh Pirates played their first game at Three Rivers Stadium.
1973 - Alexander P. Butterfield informed the Senate committee investigating the Watergate affair of the existence of recorded tapes.
1979 - Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq after forcing Hasan al-Bakr to resign.
1981 - After 23 years with the name Datsun, executives of Nissan changed the name of their cars to Nissan.
1981 - Harry Chapin died in a car crash at the age of 38. He was on his way to a benefit concert.

1985 - The All-Star Game, televised on NBC-TV, was the first program broadcast in stereo by a TV network.
2005 - J.K. Rowling's book "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was released. It was the sixth in the Harry Potter series. The book sold 6.9 million copies on its first day of release. 

July 17

1950 - The television show "The Colgate Comedy Hour" debuted featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

1954 - The Brooklyn Dodgers made history as the first team with a majority of black players.

1955 - Disneyland opened in Anaheim, CA.

1960 - Francis Gary Powers pled guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court after his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union.

1966 - Ho Chi Minh ordered a partial mobilization of North Vietnam forces to defend against American air strikes.

1968 - The Beatles’ feature-length cartoon, "Yellow Submarine," premiered at the London Pavilion.

The Beatles - Yellow Submarine

1975 - An Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit. It was the first link up between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

1979 - Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza resigned and fled to Miami in exile. (Florida)

1986 - The largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history took place when LTV Corporation asked for court protection from more than 20,000 creditors. LTV Corp. had debts in excess of $4 billion.

1987 - Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and rear Admiral John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress at the "Iran-Contra" hearings.

1995 - The Nasdaq composite stock index rose above 1,000 for the first time.

1997 - After 117 years, the Woolworth Corp. closed its last 400 stores.

July 18

1960 - Elvis Presley's "It's Now Or Never" was released. 

1964 - The Beatles album "A Hard Days Night" was released.

1964 - Pete Rose (Cincinnati Reds) hit the only grand slam home run of his career.

1970 - Ron Hunt (San Francisco Giants) was hit by a pitch for the 119th time in his career.

1971 - New Zealand and Australia announced they would pull their troops out of Vietnam.

1985 - Jack Nicklaus II, at age 23 years old, made his playing debut on the pro golf tour at the Quad Cities Open in Coal Valley, IL.

2000 - It was announced that Christopher Reeve would direct and serve as executive producer on the TV movie "Rescuing Jeffrey."

2001 - A train derailed, involving 60 cars, in a Baltimore train tunnel. The fire that resulted lasted for six days and virtually closed down downtown Baltimore for several days. (Maryland)

July 19

1946 - Marilyn Monroe acted in her first screen test.

1960 - Juan Marichal (San Francisco Giants) became the first pitcher to get a one-hitter in his major league debut.

1974 - The House Judiciary Committee recommended that U.S. President Richard Nixon should stand trial in the Senate for any of the five impeachment charges against him.

1975 - The Apollo and Soyuz spacecrafts separated after being linked in orbit for two days.

1979 - In Nicaragua, the dictatorship of the Somozas was overthrown by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or FSLN).

1982 - The U.S. Census Bureau reported that 14% of the population had an income below the official poverty level in 1981.

1984 - Geraldine Ferraro was nominated by the Democratic Party to become the first woman from a major political party to run for the office of U.S. Vice-President.

1985 - George Bell won first place in a biggest feet contest with a shoe size of 28-1/2. Bell, at age 26, stood 7 feet 10 inches tall.

1985 - Christa McAuliffe of New Hampshire was chosen to be the first schoolteacher to ride aboard the space shuttle. She died with six others when the Challenger exploded the following year.



July 20

1944 - An attempt by a group of German officials to assassinate Adolf Hitler failed. The bomb exploded at Hitler's Rastenburg headquarters. Hitler was only wounded.

1944 - U.S. President Roosevelt was nominated for an unprecedented fourth term of office at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

1947 - The National Football League (NFL) ruled that no professional team could sign a player who had college eligibility remaining.

1961 - "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off" opened in London.

1965 - Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" was released.

1965 - Lovin' Spoonful's first record, "Do You Believe in Magic," was released.

1968 - Jane Asher announced that Paul McCartney has broken off their engagement.

1969 - Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. became the first men to walk on the moon.

1974 - Turkish forces invaded Cyprus.

1974 - Joey Ramone became the lead vocalist for the Ramones.

1976 - America's Viking I robot spacecraft made a successful landing on Mars.

1982 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan pulled the U.S. out of comprehensive test ban negotiations indefinitely.

1985 - Treasure hunters began raising $400 million in coins and silver from the Spanish galleon "Nuestra Senora de Atocha." The ship sank in 1622 40 miles of the coast of Key West, FL.

1992 - Vaclav Havel, the playwright who led the Velvet Revolution against communism, stepped down as president of Czechoslovakia.

1998 - Russia won a $11.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to help avert the devaluation of its currency.

2003 - In India, elephants used for commercial work began wearing reflectors to avoid being hit by cars during night work.

July 21

1954 - The Geneva Conference partitioned Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
1957 - Althea Gibson became the first black woman to win a major U.S. tennis title when she won the Women’s National clay-court singles competition.
1958 - The last of "Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts" programs aired on CBS-TV.

1959 - A U.S. District Court judge in New York City ruled that "Lady Chatterley’s Lover" was not a dirty book.
1961 - Capt. Virgil "Gus" Grissom became the second American to rocket into a sub-orbital pattern around the Earth. He was flying on the Liberty Bell 7.
1968 - Arnold Palmer became the first golfer to make a million dollars in career earnings after he tied for second place at the PGA Championship.
1980 - AC\DC released "Back In Black." It was their first album with Brian Johnson as lead singer.

1980 - Draft registration began in the United States for 19 and 20-year-old men.
1980 - Keith Godchaux (Grateful Dead) was injured in a car accident. He died two days later.
1987 - Mary Hart, of "Entertainment Tonight", had her legs insured by Lloyd’s of London for $2 million.
1987 - Guns 'n Roses released their debut album, "Appetite For Destruction."
1997 - The U.S.S. Constitution, which defended the United States during the War of 1812, set sail under its own power for the first time in 116 years.
1998 - Chinese gymnast Sang Lan, 17, was paralyzed after a fall while practicing for the women's vault competition at the Goodwill Games in New York. Spinal surgery 4 days later failed to restore sensation below her upper chest.

2000 - NBC announced that they had found nearly all of Milton Berle's kinescopes. The filmed recordings of Berle's early TV shows had been the subject of a $30 million lawsuit filed by Berle the previous May.
2002 - WorldCom Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time it was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
2007 - The seventh and last book of the Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," was released.
2011 - Space Shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was the last flight of NASA's space shuttle program