Today in History - July 20
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833 Jul 20, Ansegis (Ansegius,
63), French abbot of Fontenelle, author, died.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1304 Jul 20, Francisco Petrarch
(d.1374), Italian poet and scholar, founder of Renaissance Humanism,
was born in Arezzo. He was educated at Avignon and saw himself as a
Florentine, Italian, and man of the world. He was a poet and
autodidact who never stopped studying until his death.
(V.D.-H.K.p.131)(HN, 7/20/98)
1402 Jul 20, In the Battle of
Angora the Mongols, led by Tamerlane "the Terrible," defeated the
Ottoman Turks and captured Sultan Beyazid I. The Turks eventually
regained control of the city and it remained a part of the Ottoman
Empire for the next five centuries. Around 2,000 BCE the site of the
present day city was a Hittite village known as Ancyra. It was
conquered in 333 BC by Macedonians led by Alexander the Great.
Because of its central Anatolian Plateau location on the Ankara
River, it became an important commercial center. Angora’s name was
changed to Ankara in 1930.
(HN, 7/20/98)(Ot, 1993, p.6)(HNQ, 4/15/02)
1573 Jul 20, Lancelot of
Brederode (Netherlands), water beggar, was beheaded.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1588 Jul 20-22, The Spanish
Armada, after month in Corunna, set sail for England. The Duke of
Medina Sedonia sailed in the flagship San Martin with Admiral Juan
Martinez de Recalde.
(HN, 7/20/01)(ON, 3/02, p.2)
1591 Jul 20, Anne Hutchinson,
religious liberal who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony
for her views, was born.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1627 Jul 20, English fleet
under George Villiers reached La Rochelle. [see Jul 10]
(MC, 7/20/02)
1636 Jul 20, John Oldham,
trader in Mass., was murdered by Indians.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1715 Jul 20, The Riot Act went
into effect in England.
(HFA, '96, p.34)(HN, 7/20/01)
1749 Jul 20, Earl of
Chesterfield said: "Idleness is only refuge of weak minds."
(MC, 7/20/02)
1752 Jul 20, John C. Pepusch
(85), English composer (Beggar's Opera), died.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1773 Jul 20, Scottish settlers
arrived at Pictou, Nova Scotia (Canada).
(MC, 7/20/02)
1785 Jul 20, Mahmud II, sultan
of Turkey (1808-39), Westernizer, reformer, was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1788 Jul 20, The governor of
the French colony of Pondicherry, Vietnam, abandoned plans to place
King Nhuyen Anh back on the throne.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1808 Jul 20, Napoleon decreed
that all French Jews adopt family names.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1810 Jul 20, Colombia declared
independence from Spain.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1824 Jul 20, Alexander
Schimmelfennig, Brig. General Union volunteers, was born in Prussia.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1836 Jul 20, Charles Darwin
climbed Green Hill on Ascension.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1847 Jul 20, Max Liebermann,
German impressionist painter, was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1850 Jul 20, John Graves Shedd,
president of Marshall Field and Company, was born. He was the first
Chicago merchant to give his employees a half-day off on Saturdays.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1861 Jul 20, The New York
Tribune compared Peace Democrats to the venomous Copperhead snake,
which strikes without warning. During the American Civil War,
Northerners who advocated restoration of the Union through a
negotiated settlement with the South was referred to as Peace
Democrats.
(HNQ, 10/9/99)
1861 Jul 20, The Congress of
the Confederate States began holding sessions in Richmond, Va.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1861 Jul 20, In the first major
battle of the Civil War [see June 10], Confederate forces repelled
an attempt by the Union Army to turn their flank in Virginia. The
battle becomes known by the Confederates as Manassas, while the
Union called it Bull Run. It was fought on Judith Carter
Henry’s farm.
(HN, 7/20/98)(HNQ, 5/10/02)
1862 Jul 20-Sep 20, A guerrilla
campaign in GA (Porter's & Poindexter's) left US 580 and CS
2,866 casualties.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1864 Jul 20, Confederate
General John Bell Hood attacked Union forces under General William
T. Sherman outside Atlanta. Gen. Hood lashed out against the Union
right wing north of the city. Repulsed but undaunted, Hood turned to
strike the Federal left wing, Major General James B. McPherson’s
Army of the Tennessee, east of Atlanta. He deployed Major General
Benjamin F. Chatham’s corps northeast of the city and sent
Lieutenant General William J. Hardee's corps around McPherson’s left
flank with orders to crush the Army of the Tennessee on the morning
of July 22. Both corps were then to assail the rest of Sherman’s
host. Battle of Peachtree Creek was part of the Atlanta Campaign.
(HN, 7/20/98)(HNQ, 7/19/01)(MC, 7/20/02)
1867 Jul 20, Imperial troops in
Guizhou, China, killed 20,000 Miao rebels.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1868 Jul 20, The 1st use of tax
stamps on cigarettes.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1870 Jul 20, Vladimir D.
Nabokov, Russian jurist, minister of Justice (1918-19), was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1871 Jul 20, British Columbia
joined Confederation as a Canadian province. Canada’s government
promised BC a railroad link to the eastern provinces as it joined
the nation.
(AP, 7/20/97)(ON, 11/07, p.9)
1872 Jul 20, Mahlon Loomis
patented a wireless radio.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1881 Jul 20, Sioux Indian
leader Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of the Little Big
Horn, surrendered to federal troops.
(AP, 7/20/97)(HN, 7/20/98)
1890 Jul 20, Theda Bara,
actress (Love Goddesses), was born as Theodosia Goodman in
Cincinnati.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1894 Jul 20, 2000 federal
troops were recalled from Chicago with the end of the Pullman
strike.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1903 Jul 20, Pope Leo XIII
died. He served 25 years, four months and 17 days.
(AP, 10/15/03)
1911 Jul 20, Generals Henry
Wilson and Auguste Dubail signed a plan for British Expeditionary
army in case of war with Germany.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1914 Jul 20, Armed resistance
against British rule began in Ulster.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1917 Jul 20, The US draft
lottery in World War I went into operation.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1917 Jul 20, Alexander Kerensky
became the premier of Russia.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1917 Jul 20, The Pact of Corfu
was signed between the Serbs, Croats & Slovenes to form
Yugoslavia. [see Dec 1, 1918]
(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1917yugoslavia1.html)
1919 Jul 20, Sir Edmund
Hillary, the first man reach the summit of Mount Everest, was born
in New Zealand.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1920 Jul 20, Elliot L.
Richardson, US Attorney General (1973), Sec of Defense (1973), was
born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1923 Jul 20, In Mexico
Francisco Villa (aka Pancho Villa, b.1877) [Doroteo Arango], general
and revolutionist, died in an ambush. In c1999 Friedrich Katz of the
Univ. of Chicago published "The Life and Times of Pancho Villa." In
2001 Frank McLynn authored "Villa and Zapata."
(WUD, 1994, p.1593)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(SFC,
5/5/99, p.A2)(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A14)(MC, 7/20/02)
1931 Jul 20, The trial of
Constance May Flood Gavin, an alleged illegitimate daughter, began
in San Mateo, Ca., for a daughter’s share in James L. Flood estate.
Before closing arguments Judge George Buck ordered a directed
verdict in favor of the Flood family. 10 jurors refused to sign the
verdict. Buck lost elections the following year to Maxwell McNutt,
the lawyer for Constance. Gavin later received a $1.2 million
out-of-court settlement.
(SMMB)(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.A28)
1933 Jul 20, Nelson Doubleday,
publisher (Doubleday), owner (NY Mets), was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1933 Jul 20, Cormac McCarthy,
novelist (All the Pretty Horses), was born.
(HN, 7/20/01)
1933 Jul 20, Vatican state
secretary Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) signed an accord with
Hitler.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1935 Jul 20, The 1st broadcast
of "Gang Busters" played on NBC-radio.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1936 Jul 20, Turkey signed a
treaty, the Montreux Convention, by which it agreed not to interfere
with transit through the Bosporus. It granted ships unrestricted
passage except in times of war.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A23)(WSJ, 7/28/05,
p.A7)(http://tinyurl.com/6lyog2)
1937 Jul 20, Don Budge (22),
American tennis player, defeated Baron Gottfried von Cram (28) of
Germany at Wimbledon in a semi-final round to see who would face
England. James Thurber later described the Budge-Cramm five-set
marathon as “the greatest match in the history of the world.”
(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.W8)
1937 Jul 20, Guglielmo Marconi
(b.1874), Italian engineer, inventor of wireless telegraphy, marquis
(radio, Nobel 1909), died in Rome.
(ON, 11/99, p.10)(MC, 7/20/02)
1938 Jul 20, Diana Rigg,
actress (Emma Peel-Avengers, Hospital), was born in Doncaster,
England.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1938 Jul 20, Natalie Wood
(d.1981), (From Here to Eternity, West Side Story, Splendor in
the Grass, Rebel Without a Cause), was born as Natasha
Nikolaevna Gurdin.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1939 Jul 20, Judy Chicago,
artist, was born.
(HN, 7/20/01)
1939 Jul 20, Joseph Mendes da
Costa, sculptor, died.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1942 Jul 20, Time put Russian
composer Dmitri Shostakovitch on its cover.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1942 Jul 20, The first
detachment of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), later known
as WACs, began basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.
(HN, 7/20/02)(AP, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 20, President
Roosevelt was nominated for an unprecedented fourth term of office
at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1944 Jul 20, US 15th Air Force
attacked Friedrichshafen and Memmingen. Flying Fortresses of US 8th
Air Force attacked Leipzig and Dessau.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 20, US invaded
Japanese occupied Guam. Japanese aircraft carrier Hijo was sunk by
US air attack.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 20, A heavy storm
hampered a British offensive at Caen.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 20, A branch of the
German resistance led by Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg planted
a bomb underneath the table where Hitler was standing at Hitler's
Rastenburg headquarters in East Prussia that wounded but did not
kill Hitler. This incited the Fuhrer to wipe out the Prussian
aristocracy. This is covered in Otto Friedrich's book on the Moltke
family: "Blood and Iron." [see 1800, Helmuth and/or 1840, James von
Moltke]
(WSJ, 11/7/95, p.A-21)(AP, 7/20/97)(HN, 7/20/98)
"In fact, although many of the
conspirators were tortured, beheaded and strangled by piano wire
hung from meat hooks... Col. Stauffenburg and three of his fellow
officers were executed by firing squad in the courtyard of the
Benderblock around midnight of that fateful day." Gen. Friedrich
Olbricht was executed along with Gen. Ludwig Beck, chief Germany
general staff. The 20th of July Special Commission of the Third
Reich was created after the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt on
Adolf Hitler to find and expose conspirators and other enemies of
the regime. Some 400 investigators employed all of the
Gestapo-designed methods of torture against enemies of the Nazis
until the end of the war. Some 5,000 Germans were executed in the
months following the assassination attempt for their part in the
conspiracy or alleged sympathy with the conspirators.
(WSJ, 11/29/95, p.A-15)(HNQ, 12/3/98)(MC,
7/20/02)
Ludwig and Kunrat
Hammerstein-Equord participated in the plot to kill Hitler and went
into hiding when the plot failed. 4 members of the family were taken
to concentration camps, but were later freed by the allies.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A19)
1944 Jul 20, The death march of
1,200 Jews from Lipcani, Moldavia, began.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1945 Jul 20, Paul Valery
(b.1871), French poet (Le cimetiere Marin, Mon Faust), died at age
73. He was buried in his home town of Sete.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, p.T10)(MC, 7/20/02)
1947 Jul 20, Carlos Santana,
legendary guitar player, was born in Autlan, Mexico.
(SSFC, 10/14/07, Par p.18)
1948 Jul 20, William Forster,
US Communist Party chairman, was arrested.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1948 Jul 20, Syngman Rhee
(b.1875) was elected president of South Korea. He served to 1960.
(HN, 4/26/98)(MC, 4/26/02)(MC, 7/20/02)
1949 Jul 20, Israel's 19 month
war of independence ended with a ceasefire agreement with Syria.
According to Israel's Foreign Ministry, 6,373 people, or nearly 1
percent of the Jewish population, were killed during Israel's War of
Independence.
(www.wikipedia.org)(AP, 12/8/07)
1950 Jul 20, In one of the
first American actions in the Korean War, the U.S. Army’s Task Force
Smith was pushed back into the Naktong perimeter by superior North
Korean forces.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1951 Jul 20, Jordan's King
Abdullah Ibn Hussein was assassinated in Jerusalem by a
Palestinian extremist. Prince Hussein (15) witnessed the murder.
Talal became king with the assassination of his father, Abdullah
ibn-Hussein, who ruled when Jordan was a British mandate.
(AP, 7/20/97)(HN, 7/20/98)(SFC, 2/6/99,
p.A13)(MC, 7/20/02)
1953 Jul 20, USSR and Israel
recovered diplomatic relations.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1954 Jul 20, An armistice for
Indo-China was signed and Vietnam separated into North & South.
[see Jul 21]
(MC, 7/20/02)
1954 Jul 20, West German secret
service head Otto John defected to German DR.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1956 Jul 20, Great Britain
refused to lend Egypt money to build Aswan Dam.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1956 Jul 20, France recognized
Tunisia's independence. [see Mar 20]
(MC, 7/20/02)
1958 Jul 20, King Hussein of
Jordan broke off diplomatic relations with UAR.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1960 Jul 20, The submarine
George Washington became the 1st submerged sub to fire a Polaris
missile.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1962 Jul 20, Dmitri
Shostakovitch completed his 13th Symphony.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1962 Jul 20, George Macaulay
Trevelyan (86), English royal historian, died.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1967 Jul 20, Race riots took
place in Memphis, Tenn.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1967 Jul 20, Pablo Neruda
received the 1st Viareggio-Versile prize.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1968 Jul 20, Joseph Keilberth
(b.1908), German conductor (Bayreuth Festival), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Keilberth)
1969 Jul 20, Astronaut Neil
Armstrong took his legendary "one small step for man, one giant leap
for mankind." He and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin made the first successful
landing of a manned vehicle on the moon’s Sea of Tranquility when
they touched down in Apollo 11. Armstrong stepped down from the
ladder of the landing module Eagle to become the first man ever to
walk on the moon. The two astronauts explored the moon's surface for
2 1/2 hours, with amazed TV audiences looking on. Armstrong was
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his accomplishments
and his contributions to the space program. Edwin Aldrin became the
second man to step foot on the moon shortly after Neil Armstrong
hopped off the lunar lander Eagle at 10:56 p.m. Armstrong and Aldrin
walked on the moon for about two hours during their 22-hour lunar
stay. Thomas Kelly (d.2002 at 72) was the engineer who had overseen
the building of the lunar module. In 2009 Buzz Aldrin authored
“Magnificent desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon.”
(AP, 7/20/97)(HNPD, 7/20/98)(HNQ, 9/14/00)(SFC,
3/29/02, p.A24)(Econ, 7/18/09, p.82)
1973 Jul 20, Bruce Lee
(b.1940), [Lee Yuen Kam], American-born martial arts expert and film
actor, died in Hong Kong 3 weeks before the opening of his new film
"Enter the Dragon." He was born in San Francisco and raised in Hong
Kong. In 2000 Davis Miller authored "The Tao of Bruce Lee, A Martial
Arts Memoir."
(SFEC, 8/13/00, BR p.4)(SFC, 7/21/03,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee)
1974 Jul 20, Turkey invaded
Cyprus.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus)
1976 Jul 20, Hank Aaron hit his
755th and final home run off the California Angels' Dick Drago at
Milwaukee County Stadium.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Aaron)
1976 Jul 20, US Air Force
Brigadier General Harry Aderholt lowered the American flag for the
last time at Military Assistance Command Thailand headquarters on
Bangkok’s Sathorn Road.
(www.nationmultimedia.com/sunday/20060709/)
1976 Jul 20, The Viking I robot
spacecraft made a successful, first-ever landing on Mars and began
taking soil samples.
(AP, 7/20/97)(HN, 7/20/98)
1977 Jul 20, A flash flood hit
Johnstown, Pa., killing more than 80 people and causing $350 million
worth of damage.
(AP, 7/20/08)
1977 Jul 20, The UN Security
Council voted to admit Vietnam to the world body.
(AP, 7/20/07)
1982 Jul 20, Irish Republican
Army bombs exploded in two London parks, killing eight British
soldiers, along with seven horses belonging to the Queen’s Household
Cavalry.
(AP, 7/20/00)
1983 Jul 20, The US House
censured Reps. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts and Daniel B. Crane of
Illinois for having sexual relations with pages. Studds, a liberal
Democrat who acknowledged having sex with a 17-year-old male page in
1973 and making sexual advances to two others, admitted an error in
judgment but did not apologize. The first openly gay member of
Congress went on to win re-election until his retirement in the
mid-1990s. Crane admitted having sex several times with a
17-year-old female page in 1980. He apologized to the House in a
quavering voice "for the shame I have brought down on this
institution." The conservative Republican was defeated a year later.
(AP,
9/30/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Congressional_page_sex_scandal)
1984 Jul 20, James Fixx
(b.1932), jogger and writer, died of a heart attack while running in
Vermont. His books included “The Complete Book of Running” (1977).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx)
1985 Jul 20, US divers found
the wreck of Spanish galleon Atocha.
(www.atochastory.com/)
1987 Jul 20, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to approve a U.S.-sponsored resolution
demanding an end to the Persian Gulf war between Iraq and Iran, a
move supported by Iraq and dismissed by Iran.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1988 Jul 20, Massachusetts Gov.
Michael Dukakis received the Democratic presidential nomination at
the party's convention in Atlanta.
(AP, 7/20/98)
1988 Jul 20, Iranian leader
Ayatollah Khomeini accepted a truce with Iraq, even though he said
the decision was like drinking poison.
(AP, 7/20/98)
1989 Jul 20, President Bush
called for a long-range space program to build an orbiting space
station, establish a base on the moon and send a manned mission to
the planet Mars.
(AP, 7/20/99)
1990 Jul 20, William J. Brennan
(1906-1997), US Supreme Court Justice, one of the court’s most
liberal voices, left office after serving over 33 years.
(AP,
7/20/00)(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/90/)
1990 Jul 20, A federal appeals
court set aside Oliver North’s Iran-Contra convictions, reversing
one outright.
(AP, 7/20/00)
1991 Jul 20,
President Bush, visiting Turkey, was cheered by thousands of people
in Ankara.
(AP, 7/20/01)
1991 Jul 20, Lebanon joined
Syria in agreeing to participate in Mideast peace talks with Israel.
(AP, 7/20/01)
1991 Jul 20, Russian President
Boris N. Yeltsin banned political activity in government offices and
republic-run businesses, effectively curtailing the influence of the
Communist Party.
(AP, 7/20/01)
1992 Jul 20, Vaclav Havel, the
playwright who led the Velvet Revolution against communism, formally
stepped down as president of Czechoslovakia after failing to halt
the country's pending breakup into two entities. He was later
elected president of the Czech Republic.
(AP, 7/20/02)
1993 Jul 20, Vincent Foster
Jr., deputy White House council, was found dead in a Virginia Park
near Washington. His death was claimed to be a suicide. An
eye-witness later claimed to see "suspicious-looking man" and
a car with Arkansas license plates not far from the scene. His death
was later concluded to be a suicide. Information relating to these
events were later leaked by a source identified as "Deep Water."
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A7)(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A3)(WSJ,
2/18/98, p.A24)(AP, 7/20/98)
1993 Jul 20, A day after firing
William Sessions as FBI director, President Clinton named federal
judge Louis Freeh (b.1950) to replace him. Freeh served until June,
2001.
(AP, 7/20/98)(WSJ, 6/14/02, p.A4)
1994 Jul 20, OJ Simpson offered
a $500,000 reward for evidence of ex-wife's killer.
(www.courttv.com/news/flashback/july.html)
1994 Jul 20, Bosnian Serbs
rejected an international peace plan sponsored by the United States,
Russia, France, Britain and Germany.
(AP, 7/20/99)
1995 Jul 20, Baseball
Hall-of-Famers Duke Snider and Willie McCovey pleaded guilty in New
York to tax evasion.
(AP, 7/20/00)
1995 Jul 20, Leaders of the
University of California voted to drop affirmative action policies
on admissions and hiring.
(AP, 7/20/00)
1996 Jul 20, At the Atlanta
Olympics, Renata Mauer of Poland won the Games' first gold, in the
10-meter air rifle.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1996 Jul 20, In his weekly
radio address, President Clinton paid tribute to America's Olympic
athletes at the just-opened Atlanta games, as well as 16 high school
students from Montoursville, Pa., who died in the crash of TWA
Flight 800.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1996 Jul 20, A new sculpture
museum was scheduled to open in Copan National Park, Honduras, with
exhibits of Mayan work.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.25)
1996 Jul 20, In Spain the
Basque separatist group ETA set off 3 bombs at tourist sites. One at
the airport of Reus and 2 at the beach resorts of Cambrils and
Salou.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.A18)
1996 Jul 20, In Uganda rebels
of the Lord’s Resistance Army abducted some 80 people, half of them
students, 125 miles north of Kampala.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A1)
1997 Jul 20, Seven people were
arrested after New York City police found scores of deaf Mexicans
kept in slave-like conditions and forced to peddle trinkets for the
smugglers who had brought them to the United States.
(AP, 7/20/98)
1997 Jul 20, From Qatar it was
reported that as many as 30% of Qatari women work. Some 6,000
graduated each year from the Univ. of Qatar.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A20)
1997 Jul 20, Palestinian
security forces arrested 4 Palestinian police officers who were
accused of planning to attack Jewish settlers. Israel had arrested 4
Palestinian policemen a week earlier for planned attacks at the
settlement of Har Bracha.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 20, Turkish troops
killed 50 Kurdish guerrillas in the southeast. That raised the
weekly total to 84.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A9)
1998 Jul 20, A smoky fire
aboard the cruise ship Ecstasy just two miles from the Florida shore
forcing its return to port.
(AP, 7/20/99)
1998 Jul 20, In Nigeria Gen’l.
Abubakar announced that elections would be held in 1999 and power
passed to a civilian president on May 29.
(SFEC, 7/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 20, Russia won an
$11.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to help
avert the devaluation of its currency. Anatoly Chubais later
admitted that he lied to the IMF about the state of the Russian
economy to get a $4.8 billion loan released.
(AP, 7/20/99)(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A10)
1998 Jul 20, Saudi Arabia
attacked a Yemeni island in the Red Sea and killed 3 guards. 3
islands and parts of the Empty Quarter, a vast desert with potential
for oil, were under contention.
(SFEC, 7/21/98, p.A7)
1998 Jul 20, In Tajikistan 4 UN
employees were killed while on routine patrol.
(SFC, 7/22/98, p.A12)
1999 Jul 20, In Tulia, Texas,
an indictment was handed down for the arrest of 46 people on drug
charges under the testimony of undercover agent Tom Coleman. A probe
into the arrests was opened in 2002 and in 2003 Gov. Rick Perry
pardoned 35 defendants. In 2004 45 of those arrested split a $6
million civil rights settlement. In 2005 Tom Coleman, former
undercover drug agent, was sentenced to 6 years on probation for
perjury in the bogus drug busts. In 2005 Nate Blakeslee authored
“Tulia: Race, Cocaine and Corruption in a Small Texas Town.”
(SFC, 6/3/03, p.A3)(SFC, 8/23/03, p.A3)(SFC,
1/15/05, p.A6)(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.M3)
1999 Jul 20, After 38 years at
the bottom of the Atlantic, astronaut Gus Grissom’s "Liberty Bell
Seven" Mercury capsule was lifted to the surface.
(AP, 7/20/00)
1999 Jul 20, Algerian
government sources said rebels had cut the throats of 9 villagers in
Medea province.
(SFC, 7/21/99, p.C2)
1999 Jul 20, In Belarus the
term of Pres. Lukashenko expired. He had extended his term to 2002
but the US said it would no longer recognize him.
(WSJ, 7/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 20, In Kashmir 20
Hindus were killed in 3 separate incidents by Muslim insurgents.
(SFC, 7/21/99, p.C2)
2000 Jul 20, The Mideast
summit, resurrected only hours after its reported demise, moved
forward with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stepping in for
President Clinton, who had left for an economic summit in Japan.
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.A1)(AP, 7/20/01)
2000 Jul 20, A federal grand
jury indicted two former Utah Olympic officials for their alleged
roles in paying one million dollars in cash and gifts to help bring
the 2002 games to Salt Lake City.
(AP, 7/20/01)
2000 Jul 20, Willamette
Industries of Portland was fined $11.2 million under the federal
Clean Air Act plus $8 mil in contributions to environmental
projects. It also agreed to install an estimated $74 million worth
of pollution control equipment. The company estimated the new
equipment at $28 mil.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.A5)(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 20, It was reported
that an experiment at Princeton showed light traveling beyond its
previous known limit.
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/20/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 20, In Egypt at least
15 people were killed when a 6-story factory building collapsed in
Alexandria.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.B10)
2000 Jul 20, In Japan Prime
Minister Mori presided in informal discussions between G-8 leaders
and 4 leaders from poor nations. Pres. Clinton arrived in Okinawa
and went directly to the Cornerstone of peace Memorial where the
names of 237,318 people, who died in the battle of Okinawa, are
inscribed.
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.A12)(SFC, 7/21/00, p.A8)
2000 Jul 20, The Stock Trading
Center of Vietnam (STC), located in Ho Chi Minh City, was officially
inaugurated. Trading commenced on July 28, 2000.
(http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/abacus-stocks-Vietnam-stock-exchange.html)
2001 Jul 20, Ira Einhorn,
convicted in absentia of killing his girlfriend, was flown from
France and handed over to Philadelphia police.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2001 Jul 20, Vanessa Leggett, a
fledgling crime writer, was jailed in Texas on contempt charges for
refusing to hand over her research notes on Robert Angleton to a
federal grand jury. Leggett was released Jan 4, 2002.
(SFC, 1/4/02, p.A17)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2001 Jul 20, It was reported
that China planned to buy 38 Russian Su-30 MKK ground attack jets
worth $2 billion.
(SFC, 7/20/01, p.D4)
2001 Jul 20, A G-8 economic
summit, planned in Genoa, Italy, expected over 100,000
demonstrators. The summit opened with raging street battles between
police and demonstrators; one protester was fatally shot by
officers. Carlo Giuliani (23) was shot and killed by police while
protesting at the G-8 summit. At least 100 people were injured. In
2008 a court convicted 15 Italian officials of abusing protesters
held in at police garrison following violent demonstrations during
the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa.
(SFC, 7/17/01, p.A6)(AP, 7/20/02)(SFC, 7/21/01,
p.A1)(AP, 7/15/08)
2001 Jul 20, In Macedonia 2
int’l. monitors and their interpreter were found killed by a land
mine near Tetovo.
(SFC, 7/21/01, p.E1)
2001 Jul 20, In Sri Lanka
thousands of demonstrators were blocked from marching into the
capital to protest the suspension of parliament by Pres.
Kumaratunga. 2 people were killed.
(SFC, 7/20/01, p.D4)(WSJ, 7/20/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 20, In the West Bank
an explosion leveled the office of Yasser Arafat in Hebron and Rajai
Abu Rajab, an activist in the Tanzim, was found dead.
(SFC, 7/21/01, p.E1)
2001 Jul 20, The New
Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) was formally adopted at
the 37th session of the (OAU) Assembly of Heads of State and
Government in Lusaka, Zambia.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.48)(
http://www.nepad.org/2005/files/inbrief.php)
2002 Jul 20, Omar Bernal, rebel
commander of the 63rd front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, surrendered Saturday to soldiers in southern
Colombia, saying he had lost faith in the decades-old guerrilla
uprising.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 20, In Greece police
arrested two more alleged November 17 terrorists, Iraklis Kostaris
and Costas Karatsolis, both 36-year-old real estate agents. One was
believed to be a hit man in four assassinations including those of a
U.S. Air Force sergeant and a British brigadier.
(AP, 7/21/02)
2002 Jul 20, A car exploded
near a mosque in an Israeli Arab neighborhood of Tel Aviv, killing
the driver.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 20, The number of
Japanese who have died after taking diet pills imported from China
has risen to four and 124 have fallen ill, Kyodo news agency
reported quoting a Health Ministry report.
(Reuters, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 20, Refugees in flight
from Liberia's war surged to 200,000, and those reaching safety in
neighboring Guinea spoke of worsening atrocities by President
Charles Taylor's forces: looting, raping, burning and killing
trapped villagers. Jubilant government troops strutted through
heavily looted Tubmanburg after driving away rebel forces who had
controlled it for close to three months.
(AP, 7/20/02)(AP, 7/21/02)
2002 Jul 20, In southeastern
Nigeria unarmed women occupying at least four ChevronTexaco
facilities said they had freed their two hostages in return for a
promise from oil executives to meet with them.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 20, In Nigeria a huge
fire broke out Saturday at ChevronTexaco's main oil terminal, days
after unarmed village women ended a 10-day siege that crippled the
oil giant's local operations.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 20-22, In Nigeria
dozens of villagers have been killed, many hacked to death, in three
days of clashes between rival political factions battling for
influence in an oil-rich area of the Niger Delta.
(AP, 7/23/02)
2002 Jul 20, In Lima, Peru, 29
people, and a lion and tiger that were part of the show, died in a
blaze started by bartenders who were doing tricks with fire at
Utopia, an unlicensed night club.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2002 Jul 20, In northeastern
Sicily a passenger train derailed and apparently crashed into an
abandoned house, killing at least eight people and injuring some 30
others.
(AP, 7/21/02)
2002 Jul 20, Sudan signed a
peace deal with southern rebels in Kenya.
(WSJ, 7/22/02, p.A1)
2003 Jul 20, President Bush
welcomed Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi to his Texas ranch for a
two-day visit.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2003 Jul 20, American generals
said a new Iraqi civil defense force would be created over the next
45 days with some 7,000 militia members. Gen. John Abizaid, the top
commander of coalition forces in Iraq, predicted that resistance to
U.S. forces in Iraq would grow in coming months as progress was made
in creating a new government to replace the dictatorial regime of
Saddam Hussein.
(SFC, 7/21/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/20/04)
2003 Jul 20, Two soldiers from
the 101st Airborne Division were killed and another wounded when
their convoy came under rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire
in northern Iraq.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, William Woolfolk
(86), writer for cartoon characters like Batman and Captain Marvel,
died. He coined one of Captain Marvel's signature lines: "Holy
Moley," and authored the 1968 bestseller "The Beautiful Couple."
(SFC, 8/11/03, p.A16)
2003 Jul 20, Ben Curtis, an
unknown PGA Tour rookie in his first major championship, won the
British Open.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2003 Jul 20, In France 2
explosions rocked central Nice, slightly injuring at least 16 people
and damaging several government buildings.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, The Israeli and
Palestinian prime ministers held a two-hour meeting, kicking off 10
days of international diplomacy aimed at solidifying a fragile
Mideast cease-fire.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, In southern Japan
weekend mudslides destroyed more than a dozen homes, killing 16
people.
(AP, 7/22/03)
2003 Jul 20, In Liberia rebels
advanced deeper into the war-ravaged capital, trading mortar,
grenade and machine-gun fire with government troops.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, In Puerto Rico
Jose Antonio Rivera Robles, was beaten to death at a gas station
after he reportedly stole a police car. In 2009 a jury in US federal
court convicted four Puerto Rican police officers in the beating
death. Two other officers previously pleaded guilty to felony
federal civil rights charges in the case.
(AP,
8/13/09)(www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-crt-803.html)
2004 Jul 20, Former national
security adviser Sandy Berger quit as an informal adviser to
Democrat John Kerry's presidential campaign after disclosure of a
criminal investigation into whether he'd mishandled classified
terrorism documents.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2004 Jul 20, Microsoft said it
would make a one-time dividend payment of $32 billion and buy back
up to $30 billion in company stock over the next 4 years.
(WSJ, 7/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 20, In Afghanistan US
forces killed one militant and captured 5 others including a brother
of Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
(SFC, 7/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Jul 20, Monsoon floods,
tornadoes and rains roared through already inundated villages in
South Asia, killing 42 more people. 15 died in Bangladesh and 27 in
India. Fresh rains in Asia took the rainy season death toll to
nearly 800.
(AP, 7/21/04)(Reuters, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 20, Britain's
government backed long-standing plans to build a railway network
linking east and west London at a cost of around 10 billion pounds.
(AFP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, EU lawmakers
elected a pro-European from Spain to be its next president as the
expanded European Parliament met for the first time. The 732-member
assembly chose Josep Borrell, a relatively unknown Spanish
Socialist, to its top job.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, Former Guam Gov.
Carl Gutierrez (1995-2003) was acquitted on charges he used
government workers and public money to build and improve his
cliffside ranch.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 20, President Ricardo
Maduro said he is sending troops to help police quell a clash
between loggers and environmentalists in south-central Honduras.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, In Iran a
prominent history professor twice condemned to death on blasphemy
charges was informed of a three year jail sentence for insulting
Islamic sacred beliefs.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, A Filipino truck
driver held hostage in Iraq for nearly two weeks was freed, a day
after his nation withdrew its final peacekeepers from Iraq.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, A bomb attack on
an Iraqi minibus killed four civilians and injured two others near
Baqouba.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, Israeli helicopter
gunships and tanks fired on Hezbollah guerrilla positions in
southern Lebanon, killing one guerrilla, Lebanese security officials
reported. Hezbollah said it killed two Israeli soldiers.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, The U.N. General
Assembly called for the structure to be torn down in compliance with
a world court ruling. Israel's construction of its West Bank barrier
continued.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 20, In Nepal Communist
rebels freed about 50 students and a dozen teachers.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, Pakistani
officials acknowledged the closing and bulldozing of 2 refugee camps
Zarinoor 1 & 2 in South Waziristan. The government had decided
to dismantle all camps within 3 miles of the Afghan border.
(SFC, 7/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Jul 20, In Saudi Arabia
the head of slain American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr., who was
kidnapped and decapitated by militants last month, was found by
security forces during a raid that targeted the hideout of the Saudi
al-Qaida chief. Two militants were killed.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2005 Jul 20, A day after being
tapped by President Bush, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts paid
courtesy calls on senators while a conservative group purchased TV
ad time in support of his nomination and abortion rights groups
staged protests.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2005 Jul 20, Eastman Kodak Co.
said it is cutting as many as 10,000 more jobs as the company that
turned picture-taking into a hobby for the masses navigates a tough
transition from film to digital photography.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, SF Bay Area air
quality officials impost the toughest regulations in the nation to
reduce flaring in the East Bay’s 5 oil refineries.
(SFC, 7/21/05, p.B1)
2005 Jul 20, Actor James Doohan
(85), who transported the crew of "Star Trek" through space on the
command "Beam me up, Scotty," died. He has asked that his ashes be
blasted into space.
(AFP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Two Afghans
released from Guantanamo Bay claimed about 180 Afghans at the U.S.
detention facility were on a hunger strike to protest alleged
mistreatment and to push for freedom.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Cambodia handed
over some 107 Montagnards, a largely Christian hilltribe people, to
Vietnamese authorities. More than 1,000 Montagnards fled to Cambodia
after security forces put down demonstrations in Vietnam's Central
Highlands in 2001 against land confiscation and religious
persecution of ethnic minorities. In January, Vietnam, Cambodia and
the UNHCR signed a memorandum of understanding to resettle or
repatriate about 700 ethnic minority Vietnamese who were estimated
at the time to be in Cambodia.
(AFP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, Haitang was
downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm as it moved into
southeast China, leaving a trail of destruction. The death toll in
Taiwan and in China rose to 15.
(AFP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, Canada legalized
gay marriage, becoming the world's 4th nation to grant full legal
rights to same-sex couples.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In India the
Chattisgarh state government said it will begin supplying arms to
tribespeople who have formed vigilante groups to protect themselves
from attacks by Maoist rebels.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Sunni Muslim
members on a committee drafting Iraq's new constitution suspended
their participation in the wake of a colleague's assassination,
saying they need more security. A suicide bomber blew himself up
outside an army recruiting center in central Baghdad, killing at
least 10 people.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, A Milan prosecutor
sought arrest warrants for six more purported CIA operatives,
accusing them of helping plan the kidnapping of an Egyptian radical
Muslim cleric.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Kashmir a car
bomb blew up an army jeep, killing 5 soldiers and at least one
civilian and injuring 20 others near a school in an elite
neighborhood of Srinagar.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, Japanese
electronics giant Hitachi said it has become the first foreign
company to win certification from US transport authorities for its
bomb-detection equipment, opening up major new markets.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Kenya riot
police beat demonstrators with truncheons and fired tear gas
canisters as protests in Nairobi persisted over proposed
constitutional amendments that critics say leave the president with
too much power.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Lebanon
PM-designate Fuad Siniora announced a cabinet of 24 ministers. The
lineup for the first time included a member of the Hizb Allah
movement. Mohammed Fneish became energy minister. Hizb Allah ally
Tarrad Hamadeh retained the post of labor minister.
(http://tinyurl.com/m8ctm)
2005 Jul 20, In Mexico more
than 1,000 people marched through the streets of the colonial
capital of southern Oaxaca state to demand that picketers disband a
blockade that has trapped journalists inside a newspaper building
for about a month.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Hurricane Emily
slammed into northeastern Mexico with 125 mph winds.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Palestine the
ruling Fatah movement and the Islamic Hamas agreed to end several
days of clashes in northern Gaza that took the lives of two
bystanders.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, President Vladimir
Putin said Russia won't allow foreign organizations to finance
political activities in the country.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Yemen at least
11 people were killed in clashes with police after rioters threw
stones and set fires in streets to protest against subsidy cuts that
nearly doubled petrol prices.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2006 Jul 20, President Bush
delivered his first address to the 97th annual NAACP convention
after having declining invitations for five years in a row. He
received mixed support. Bush said he knew racism existed in America
and that many black voters distrusted his Republican Party; Bush
promised to improve the GOP's rocky relations with blacks.
(AP, 7/20/06)(SFC, 7/21/06, p.A4)(AP, 7/20/07)
2006 Jul 20, The US Senate
voted 98-0 to renew the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act for another
quarter-century.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2006 Jul 20, The US released
new postage stamps featuring Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman,
Supergirl and a half dozen other superheroes.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 20, The SEC filed
criminal and civil charges against executives at Brocade
Communications in San Jose, Ca., for back-dating stock options.
Estimates had it that some 29% of 7,774 US companies may have
backdated option grants from 1996-2002.
(SFC, 7/22/06, p.C3)
2006 Jul 20, California’s Gov.
Schwarzenegger authorized $150 million in loans to the state’s stem
cell agency. A day earlier Pres. Bush vetoed legislation that would
have expanded federal funding for stem cell research.
(SFC, 7/21/06, p.B1)
2006 Jul 20, In Afghanistan
coalition forces killed 6 Taliban in the district of Garmser in
Helmand province.
(AP, 7/22/06)
2006 Jul 20, The UN food agency
said China became the world's third-largest food aid donor in 2005,
the same year it stopped receiving assistance from the World Food
Program, while the US and the EU remained the top two contributors.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 20, German and US
scientists began a 2-year project to decipher the genetic code of
the Neanderthal.
(SFC, 7/21/06, p.A6)
2006 Jul 20, India arrested
three men in connection with last week's Mumbai bombings that killed
more than 180 men.
(Reuters, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 20, Iraq's top Shiite
cleric urged his followers to refrain from reprisal violence against
Sunnis, his strongest call yet for an end to increasing sectarian
bloodshed that threatens to erupt into full-scale civil war. Car
bombs in Baghdad killed 9 police officers and 6 civilians. A
roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad killed 2. Police in Baghdad found
38 bodies, most of whom were shot in the head. A car bomb exploded
at a village gas station in Tikrit, killing 13 people who had
gathered around the vehicle after discovering a corpse inside. An
explosion in Kirkuk killed 7 people. Gunmen assassinated a former
official of Saddam's Baath party in Karbala.
(AP, 7/20/06)(SFC, 7/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Jul 20, Israeli troops met
fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas as they crossed into
Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second straight day, and
Israel hinted at a full-scale invasion.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 20, Israeli forces
killed 3 people and wounded six in the Gaza Strip. The army dropped
leaflets on towns and villages warning that homes hiding weapons
would be attacked.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 20, In southwest
Pakistan 300 tribal militants surrendered to authorities, where
President Pervez Musharraf says an insurgency is dying down. In a
search near the former rebel stronghold of Dera Bugti, troops seized
10 surface-to-air missiles, 195 anti-personnel and anti-tank mines,
270 hand grenades, 205 rockets and 201 mortar shells.
(AFP, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 20, Residents of
central Somalia said that hundreds of Ethiopian troops were
patrolling the town of Baidoa in armored vehicles, less than a day
after Islamic militants moved near the base of the weak, UN-backed
government.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 20, Bio Fuel Systems,
a Spanish company, claimed to have developed a method of breeding
plankton and turning the marine plants into oil, providing a
potentially inexhaustible source of clean fuel.
(Reuters, 7/20/06)
2007 Jul 20, On the Caribbean
island of St. Maarten Georgia state athletes Randy Newton and Bryan
Kilgore were killed. Michael Registe was later accused of the
murders and faced extradition.
(SSFC, 7/19/09, p.A6)
2006 Jul 20, Luis Jefferson
Lira Rodriguez (20), a Venezuela soldier, massacred 8 people at
Ranch Adi, but said he acted on orders from at least one other
lieutenant who claimed there was a Colombian rebel camp nearby.
Officials later said rape was the motive and that the soldier acted
alone.
(AP, 8/17/06)
2007 Jul 20, President Bush
signed an executive order prohibiting cruel and inhuman treatment,
including humiliation or denigration of religious beliefs, in the
detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2007 Jul 20, Kevin Andre Smoot
(43), a former executive of Eagle Global Logistics’ freight
forwarding station in Houston, a company that shipped military cargo
to Iraq, pleaded guilty to lying about a fraud scheme that bilked
the government out of more than a million dollars. Smoot admitted
that he lied to federal investigators who questioned him about a
scheme to inflate invoices by adding a "war risk surcharge" of 50
cents for each kilogram of freight transported to Baghdad.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 20, Purdue Pharma
L.P., the maker of OxyContin, and 3 of its executives were ordered
to pay a $634.5 million fine for misleading the public about the
painkiller's risk of addiction.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 20, A 4.2 earthquake
jolted San Francisco Bay area residents awake, breaking glass and
rattling nerves, although there were no immediate reports of
injuries.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, In Ohio an
ambulance heading to a hospital was broadsided by a car in Crane
Township and 5 people were killed including 3 EMT technicians and 2
patients.
(SFC, 7/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Jul 20, Tammy Faye Messner
(b.1942) died in Missouri. As Tammy Faye Bakker she had helped her
husband, Jim, build a multimillion-dollar evangelism empire that
collapsed in disgrace. She divorced her husband of 30 years, with
whom she had two children, in 1992 while he was in prison for
defrauding millions from followers of their PTL ("Praise the Lord"
or "People that Love") television ministries. In 1993 she married
Roe Messner, a former PTL contractor and chief builder of Heritage
USA, a PTL theme park in South Carolina. In 1996 Messner was
sentenced to 27 months in prison for federal bankruptcy fraud.
(AP, 7/22/07)(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.B7)
2007 Jul 20, Pete Wilson
(b.1945), TV anchor for KGO-TV in SF, died one day after a heart
attack suffered during hip replacement surgery at Stanford Hospital.
(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Jul 20, Angola, Namibia
and South Africa launched a joint commission designed to lay the
groundwork for a sustainable and environmental approach of their
shared fishing grounds in the Atlantic Ocean.
(AFP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, An election
committee said Bako Saakian, Nagorno-Karabakh's former security
chief, won the presidency of the Armenian-controlled breakaway
region with 85% of the vote.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Hundreds of
thousands of people packed the streets of La Paz to protest efforts
to relocate Bolivia's capital in one of the largest demonstrations
in the history of the Andean country. La Paz backers said switching
the capital from Bolivia's largest city, with a metropolitan
population of 1.7 million, to Sucre, population 250,000, would be
expensive and divisive.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Sen. Antonio
Carlos Peixoto de Magalhaes (79), one of Brazil's most influential
politicians, died. He had held on to power as the country came under
a military dictatorship and returned to democracy.
(AP, 7/21/07)(SFC, 7/23/07, p.D6)
2007 Jul 20, China said it had
shut down several firms at the heart of food and drug safety scares,
including a chemical plant implicated in the deaths of 94 people in
Panama. China also said that it "strongly opposed" decisions by the
United States to initiate anti-dumping and countervailing duty
investigations on imports of some woven sacks and steel pipes from
China. Total deaths in Panama reached 116 from contaminated
medications.
(AP, 7/20/07)(Reuters, 7/20/07)(AP, 5/10/08)
2007 Jul 20, In southern China
a mentally ill man wielding a wrench wounded 18 children and a
teacher in a kindergarten before fleeing on a motorcycle. Police
nabbed the attacker at his home and sent him to hospital because he
had stabbed himself in the stomach.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 20, A magnitude-6.1
quake hit far western Xinjiang's mountainous Tekes county. Chinese
authorities relocated 8,250 people after the earthquake damaged and
destroyed thousands of mud brick houses.
(AP, 7/22/07)
2007 Jul 20, Aid officials said
clashes between rival militia groups in eastern Congo have killed
nine fighters and reduced dozens of houses to smoldering ruins. The
fighting erupted a week ago in Minembwe, about 120 miles southwest
of the eastern lakeside city of Uvira.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Ecuador's Pres.
Rafael Correa overturned a ban on the sale of shark fins, which are
popular in Asia, but stipulated they can only be sold if the sharks
are caught by fishermen accidentally.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Ethiopia pardoned
and freed 38 opposition politicians and activists following
international condemnation of their imprisonment and days after US
lawmakers took steps to criticize the country's human rights record.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, A heat wave
sweeping central and southeastern Europe killed at least 13 people
this week, with soaring temperatures sparking forest fires, damaging
crops and prompting calls to ban horse-drawn tourist carriages.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Two suspects in
the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a priest and a prefect, were arrested in
France on a warrant from an international court investigating the
massacres. Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a Roman Catholic priest in
Normandy, and Laurent Bucyibaruta, a former prefect, were jailed
before possible extradition to Tanzania where the UN International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is based.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, In Iraq 4 people
were killed and three wounded when clashes broke out in the Shiite
village of Ajemi near Khalis. A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier
in Diyala province. Iraqi troops detained 46 suspected militants and
killed five others in a new operation in eastern Diyala. A US
airstrike killed six militants in Husseiniyah, according to US
military, disputing claims by Iraqi officials and relatives of the
victims that 18 civilians died in the attack.
(AP, 7/20/07)(AP, 7/21/07)(AP, 7/22/07)
2007 Jul 20, Israel released
more than 250 Palestinian prisoners, aiming to bolster embattled
President Mahmoud Abbas in his power struggle with the Islamic
militants of Hamas.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, The UN said that
it had confined a group of peacekeepers to their base in Ivory Coast
after receiving allegations of widespread sexual abuse, the latest
in a string of accusations of sexual violations by UN forces around
the world.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Suspected Islamic
rebels attacked Hindu pilgrims with hand grenades for the second
time in a week in India's portion of Kashmir, wounding 11 people.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 20, Lebanon’s army
used loudspeakers to urge Islamic extremists inside a Palestinian
refugee camp in northern Lebanon to surrender, as sporadic fighting
continued.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Officials said
Liberia's former House speaker and an ex-military commander have
been charged with treason for their involvement in an alleged coup
plot.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Nigeria filed a
new lawsuit against US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer claiming some 6.5
billion dollars in damages for deaths allegedly stemming from drug
trials. In Sokoto, Nigeria's main Islamic city, mobs burned down
houses in Shiite neighborhoods in apparent reprisal for the murder
this week of a radical Sunni Muslim cleric. In northern Nigeria at
least one person died and about 100 were detained in a series of
dawn raids following sectarian clashes sparked by the killing of a
popular Sunni cleric In southern Nigeria Gunmen killed a Lebanese
businessman in his home. Later in the day attackers tried to ambush
a truck carrying several foreign workers in what appeared to be a
kidnapping attempt.
(AFP, 7/20/07)(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Pakistan’s Supreme
Court reinstated Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, ruling
that his suspension by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was illegal.
Clashes broke out between Pakistani troops and militants in North
Waziristan after a suicide car bomber hit a security checkpoint,
killing four people. In northwestern Pakistan lightning and heavy
rain caused landslides that destroyed homes in two villages, killing
more than 70 people.
(AP, 7/20/07)(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 20, The WTO said
Rwanda plans to import a generic HIV/AIDS medicine made in Canada,
making it the first country to test a World Trade Organization
waiver on drug patents.
(Reuters, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Rade Terzic,
Serbia's former state prosecutor, was arrested on suspicion he
belonged to a criminal gang linked to former President Slobodan
Milosevic.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, President Thabo
Mbeki hailed the launch of a rolling news network in South Africa as
an opportunity to break free of Western news agendas and give a more
rounded picture of the continent.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2008 Jul 20, Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged steadfast aid to
Afghanistan in talks with its Western-backed leader and vowed to
pursue the war on terror "with vigor" if he is elected. 9 policemen
were killed in international military air strikes called in when
police and troops clashed after mistaking each other for Taliban.
International soldiers had moved into a district in Farah province
without informing police, who thought they were militants. 3
children were killed in the southern province of Helmand when a bomb
blew up a minivan. One NATO soldier was killed in Khost province. A
precision missile strike by British aircraft killed Abdul Rasaq, a
Taliban leader who led fighters in the Musa Qala area of Helmand
province.
(AP, 7/20/08)(AFP, 7/20/08)(SFC, 7/21/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 20, In Australia Pope
Benedict XVI said a "spiritual desert" was spreading throughout the
world and he challenged young people to shed the greed and cynicism
of their time to create a new age of hope for humankind.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In central Bolivia
a Venezuelan military helicopter often used to transport Bolivian
President Evo Morales crashed. Four Venezuelan military personnel
and a Bolivian officer were reported killed.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, Beijing started
its most drastic pollution-control plan, restricting car use and
limiting factory emissions in a last-minute push to clear
smog-choked skies for the August Olympics.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Well over a
million Colombians, clad in white and shouting "No more kidnapping,"
marked their independence day with marches and concerts demanding
freedom for hostages still held by leftist rebels.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In northern India
a packed bus collided with a truck in Uttar Pradesh state, killing
at least 17 people and wounding 35 others.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Activists said
Iran has sentenced eight women and one man convicted of adultery to
death by stoning. The nine, who are between 27 and 50 years old,
were convicted of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian
cities.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Iraq a new
airport opened in Najaf in what the prime minister said was a key
step in the reconstruction of a country devastated by war. The
government said an oil refinery in Iraq's western desert has resumed
production. American soldiers killed two armed relatives of a
provincial governor during a raid in Salahuddin province against
al-Qaida in Iraq. 2 private security contractors were killed in a
car bombing in Mosul. 8 Iraqis were injured in the blast.
(AP, 7/20/08)(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Israel British
PM Gordon Brown, on his first official visit as prime minister, said
that economic development was key to bringing peace to the Middle
East. Brown demanded that Israel cease settlement construction and
promised more money to jump-start the battered Palestinian economy.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Barack Obama made
a brief stop in Kuwait, a key US ally. The delegation met with the
emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, and other senior officials.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Lebanon
Shehadeh Jawhar, military commander of the Jund al-Sham group, died
from wounds in the previous day’s clash with members of the
mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, Morocco's police
seized more than 10 tons of drugs during raids in the north of the
country and along its coasts.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Pakistan five
militants died in a failed assault on the Tora Warai military fort
near Hangu. The army said security forces had killed 15 militants
and detained 60 others, in the first major action against insurgents
under Pakistan's new government.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In northern Spain
4 bombs exploded at popular seaside resorts in Cantabria, after
warning calls from the Basque separatist group ETA. No casualties
were reported.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Sri Lankan
government forces captured a Tamil Tiger rebel base in the north
after a 48-hour battle that left at least 15 rebels dead. Air force
jets destroyed six rebel boats.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, A state newspaper
reported that Zimbabwe will transfer ownership of all foreign-owned
firms that support Western sanctions against President Robert
Mugabe's government to locals and investors from "friendly"
countries.
(Reuters, 7/20/08)
2009 Jul 20, The United States
and India agreed on a defense pact that takes a major step toward
allowing the sale of sophisticated US arms to the South Asian nation
as it modernizes its military. New Delhi also approved sites for two
US nuclear reactors.
(Reuters, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, In California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and four legislative leaders agreed to bridge
a $26.3 billion gap between expenditures and the state's plummeting
revenues. The agreement composed of cuts, borrowing and fund shifts
was not expected to resolve California's financial problems as the
economy continues to struggle and tax revenue lags far behind the
level of the boom years.
(AP, 7/21/09)
2009 Jul 20, In Afghanistan 10
Taliban were killed and three other militants wounded while making
bombs in a house in Ghazni province. A roadside bomb killed 4 US
soldiers.
(AP, 7/21/09)(SFC, 7/21/09, p.A3)
2009 Jul 20, Algeria’s Ministry
of Transport said the Chinese civil engineering group CCECC has won
3 contracts worth a total of 1.46 billion euros to build railways in
Algeria.
(AFP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, In Australia
Adelaide-based Vaxine began swine flu vaccine trials with 300
subjects. Melbourne's CSL had 240 people in its seven-month trial,
which started Jul 22. The companies said their trials are the first
tests of a swine flu vaccine on humans.
(AP, 7/22/09)
2009 Jul 20, In eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo at least 24 people, most of them
civilians, were killed when rebels attacked an army base.
(Reuters, 7/23/09)
2009 Jul 20, In India Ajmal
Kasab (21), the lone surviving gunman in the Nov 26, 2008, Mumbai
attacks, pleaded guilty and gave a detailed account of the plot, his
training in Pakistan and his role in the rampage that killed 171
people dead and paralyzed the city for three days.
(AP, 7/20/09)(SFC, 7/21/09, p.A3)
2009 Jul 20, Iran's supreme
leader issued a tough warning to the opposition to back down after
pro-reform former president Mohammad Khatami called for a referendum
on the government's legitimacy.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, In Malaysia
Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno (32), a Muslim woman, was sentenced to
six lashes and a fine of 5,000 ringgit ($1,400) for having a beer in
a nightclub in Dec 2007. She would become the first woman in
Malaysia to be given the punishment under Islamic law. Her caning
was delayed on Aug 24 because of the holy month of Ramadan. On Mar
30, 2010, the state's sultan spared her the caning and instead
ordered her to do 3 weeks of community service.
(AP, 7/21/09)(AP, 8/19/09)(AP, 8/24/09)(AP,
4/1/10)
2009 Jul 20, In Mexico 3 men
were killed outside a bar before dawn in Ciudad Juarez, across from
El Paso, Texas.
(AP, 7/2o/09)
2009 Jul 20, Pakistani said
clashes between security forces and militants have left 20 people
dead in the northwest over the past 24 hours.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, A Palestinian
official said more than 30 Israeli settlers, some of them on
horseback, set fire to fields and olive trees and stoned Palestinian
cars during a rampage in the West Bank. Two Palestinians were
lightly injured.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, Peru’s former
President Alberto Fujimori was convicted of embezzlement and
sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison after he admitted illegally
paying his spy chief $15 million in government funds.
(AP, 7/21/09)
2009 Jul 20, The Russian rights
group, where slain activist Natalia Estemirova worked, said it has
suspended operations in Chechnya because of safety fears for her
co-workers. Memorial said it will continue tracking human rights
abuses in nearby Ingushetia. A spokesman for Chechen leader Ramzan
Kadyrov, who has condemned the murder and promised to find those
responsible, said a Moscow court had accepted a lawsuit from Kadyrov
against Memorial head Oleg Orlov for libel after the group's
chairman blamed Kadyrov for Estemirova's death.
(Reuters, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, In Somalia Islamic
insurgents with alleged links with al-Qaida looted two United
Nations compounds in southern Somalia, and announced they will ban
three UN agencies from operating in areas the militants control.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, In South Africa 9
workers died when the roof of the mine shaft they were working in
collapsed and trapped them about half a mile (1 km) underground in
Rustenburg.
(AP, 7/21/09)
2009 Jul 20, In Thailand
Southeast Asian foreign ministers (ASEAN) endorsed the region's
first human rights watchdog, rejecting criticisms that the body
would be powerless to tackle rogue members such as Myanmar. 2
assailants on a motorcycle shot and killed a Buddhist man who was
traveling on a road in Pattani province.
(AFP, 7/20/09)(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, A UN war crimes
court in the Hague convicted Milan Lukic and Sredoje Lukic, two
Bosnian Serb cousins, for a "callous" 1992 killing spree that
included locking scores of Muslims in two houses and burning them
alive in Visegrad. He sentenced Milan to life in prison and Sredoje
to 30 years.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, In Venezuela
Alicia Torres, a judge handling one of Venezuela's most politically
charged cases, said that she was fired after complaining about
pressure to rule against an opponent of President Hugo Chavez.
Torres said last week she was pressured by a superior to prohibit
Guillermo Zuloaga, president and owner of the Globovision TV
channel, from leaving the country.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, Zambia's Catholic
bishops and the International Press Institute condemned the arrest
on obscenity charges of a newspaper editor who says she was trying
to draw attention to the consequences of a health workers' strike.
Chansa Kabwela, editor of the independent Post, was arrested last
week after e-mailing pictures of a woman giving birth in the streets
to policy makers and aid groups.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2010 Jul 20, The Oakland, Ca.,
City Council adopted regulations permitting industrial-scale
marijuana farms.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 20, In northern
Afghanistan 2 American civilians and an Afghan soldier were killed
in a shooting on an Afghan military base. An Afghan soldier who
trained others at the base outside Mazar-e-Sharif started shooting
during a weapons exercise. The shooter was killed. The international
community endorsed sweeping Afghan government plans to take
responsibility for security by 2014, forge peace to end nine years
of war and take greater control of aid projects. NATO forces
detained a Taliban operative who had been in the final preparation
stages for attacks against an int’l. conference.
(AP, 7/20/10)(AFP, 7/20/10)(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 20, It was reported
that at least 26 people have died in Argentina from exposure, carbon
monoxide inhalation from heaters and other weather-related causes. A
cold front across much of South America was linked to dozens of
deaths, mounting losses for cattle ranchers and other hardships.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, The Australian Sex
Party promised to spice up campaigning for next month's elections
with a manifesto "unlike Australia had ever seen before." The
party's policies include legalizing euthanasia, decriminalizing all
drugs for personal use, and watering down strict anti-pornography
laws.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, The Bank of Canada
raised its key interest rate, as expected, but warned the domestic
and global recovery will be slower than it had previously forecast,
suggesting any further hikes may be gradual. Borrowing costs rose 25
basis points to 0.75%.
(Reuters, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Paris-based
International Energy Agency said China has overtaken the United
States as the world's largest energy consumer. The IE said China's
2009 consumption of energy sources ranging from oil and coal wind
and solar power was equal to 2.265 billion tons of oil, compared to
2.169 billion tons for the US.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Guinea's top court
announced final results from last month's presidential election and
confirmed that the top two finishers will face each other in a
runoff. Former PM Cellou Dalein Diallo garnered nearly 44 percent of
the vote, short of the simple majority needed to avoid a second
round. Longtime opposition politician Alpha Conde won just about 18
percent, while another ex-premier, Sidya Toure came in third place
with close to 13 percent of the vote.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iran's parliament
authorized tit-for-tat retaliation against countries that inspect
cargo on Iranian ships and aircraft as part of new UN sanctions over
Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iranian newspapers
reported the hanging of 3 men in a prison in Kerman and one in
public in the city of Ahvaz after they were convicted of drug
trafficking.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iraqi officials
discovered that 4 al-Qaida-linked detainees escaped from Karkh
prison in the Baghdad area, which was handed over by the US to Iraqi
authorities a week ago. The four men were officially listed in a
security report as Mohammed Hamid, Qais Azmi, Malik Nazzal and
Hussein Ahmed. A car bomb near a roadside restaurant just
north of Baghdad killed one person and wounded seven Iranian
pilgrims heading to Karbala.
(AP, 7/22/10)(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 20, Israel canceled a
warning to its people to avoid traveling to Turkey, citing an end to
stormy protests over Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Italian engineers
launched a 3-month, 8,000-mile test drive of a robotic vehicle from
Parma to China.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 20, Pakistani army
guards shot and killed three suspected suicide bombers and two other
militants as they tried to enter a sprawling military firing range
in the northwest.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Kurdish rebels
killed six Turkish soldiers and wounded 15 in an overnight raid on a
military outpost along the border with Iraq. Another soldier died in
a separate attack.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Seoul's
mass-circulation Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said Kwon Ho Ung, North
Korea's chief delegate from 2004 to 2007 for high-level talks with
the South's then liberal government, has been executed by firing
squad.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, A Somali human
rights group said at least 53 civilians were killed over the past
week in clashes between government forces and Islamic militants.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 20, Spain's Parliament
rejected a proposal to ban women from wearing in public places
Islamic veils that reveal only the eyes.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Sudan expelled
three top Chadian rebel chiefs on the eve of a visit to Chad by
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Taiwan’s Pres. Ma
Ying-jeou announced the formation of a new commission to battle
corruption and vote buying. A week earlier 3 high court judges and a
prosecutor were detained amid allegations that they took bribes to
fix the outcome of a high profile case.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 20, Uganda's
government defended the forced repatriation of 1,700 Rwandan
refugees, action that the UN refugee agency condemned for being
heavy-handed. Two people died while trying to escape the roundup.
The Rwandans were forced out of Uganda on July 14 because they had
no refugee status and had become a security risk.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez said he would put a representative on the
board of opposition television station Globovision, the leftist
leader's boldest move yet against his fiercest media critic.
(Reuters, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Yemeni tribal
chief Sheikh Zaidan al-Moqannay, his son and four of his bodyguards
were killed in a rebel ambush in Saada. Rebel spokesman Mohammed
Abdul Salam denied that the rebels ambushed Moqannay, claiming that
he was killed in confrontations which also resulted in the death of
three rebels. Rebels said they welcomed a Qatari offer to help
consolidate a truce.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
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