This Day In History - July 29th

[Kellie]

1588 - The English defeated the Spanish Armada in the Battle of Gravelines.

1754 - The first international boxing match was held. The 25-minute match was won when Jack Slack of Britain knocked out Jean Petit from France.

1773 - The first schoolhouse to be located west of the Allegheny Mountains was built in Schoenbrunn, OH.

1786 - "The Pittsburgh Gazette" became the first newspaper west of the Alleghenies to be published. The paper's name was later changed to "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette."

1874 - Major Walter Copton Winfield of England received U.S. patent for the lawn-tennis court.

1890 - Artist Vincent van Gogh died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auvers, France.

1914 - The first transcontinental telephone service was inaugurated when two people held a conversation between New York, NY and San Francisco, CA.

1940 - John Sigmund of St. Louis, MO completed a 292-mile swim down the Mississippi River. The swim from St. Louis to Caruthersville, MO took him 89 hours and 48 minutes.

1950 - Disney's adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" was released.
Disney movies, music and books

1957 - Jack Paar began hosting the "Tonight" show on NBC-TV. The name of the show was changed to "The Jack Paar Show." Paar was host for five years.

1957 - The International Atomic Energy Agency was established.

1958 - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was authorized by the U.S. Congress.

1967 - Fire swept the USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin. 134 U.S. servicemen were killed.

1968 - Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's stance against artificial methods of birth control.

1975 - OAS (Organization of American States) members voted to lift collective sanctions against Cuba. The U.S. government welcomed the action and announced its intention to open serious discussions with Cuba on normalization.

1981 - England's Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were married.

1983 - Steve Garvey of the Los Angeles Dodgers set the National League consecutive game record at 1,207.

1985 - General Motors announced that Spring Hill, TN, would be the home of the Saturn automobile assembly plant.

1993 - The Israeli Supreme Court acquitted retired Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk of being Nazi death camp guard "Ivan the Terrible." His death sentence was thrown out and he was set free.

1997 - Minamata Bay in Japan was declared free of mercury 40 years after contaminated food fish were blamed for deaths and birth defects.

1998 - The United Auto Workers union ended a 54-day strike against General Motors. The strike caused $2.8 billion in lost revenues.

1999 - Mark O. Barton killed nine people and wounded 13 others in a shooting rampage in Atlanta, GA. He wife and two children had been found bludgeoned to death earlier in the day.

2005 - Astronomers announced that they had discovered a new planet larger than Pluto in orbit around the sun.

[Kellie]

1959 - The Isley Brothers recorded "Shout."

1961 - Dick Clark premiered his summer stage show, the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars, at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City.

1963 - Peter, Paul and Mary's "Blowin' In The Wind" was released.

1965 - The Beatles film "Help!" premiered in London.


1966 - Bob Dylan was seriously injured when he crashed his motorcycle near Woodstock, NY.

1967 - The Temptations' "You're My Everything" was released.

1968 - The Byrds left on their tour of South Africa without Gram Parsons. He had refused to set foot in a country where apartheid was official policy.

1973 - $180,000 was stolen from Led Zeppelin's deposit box at the Drake Hotel in New York City, NY.


1978 - Kenny Loggins "Whenever I Call You Friend" was released.

1980 - David Bowie opened in the title role of "Elephant Man."

1981 - The debut album "Time" was released by The Time.

1982 - Andy Taylor (Duran Duran) and Tracie Wilson were married.

1987 - Michigan's governor announced an annual "Four Tops Day."

1998 - The first headlining tour for Matchbox 20 began in New Orleans, LA.

1998 - Miramax Films announced that they had purchased the rights to the Beatle's movie "A Hard Day's Night" with the intention of releasing a remastered version on the movie's 35th anniversary.