History of 8 July
1907 – Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first “Follies” on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.
1919 – U.S. President Wilson returned from the Versailles Peace Conference in France.
1947 – Demolition work began in New York City for the new permanent headquarters of the United Nations.
1950 – General Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea.
1953 – Notre Dame announced that the next five years of its football games would be shown in theatres over closed-circuit TV.
1960 – The Soviet Union charged Gary Powers with espionage. He was shot down in a U-2 spy plane.
1963 – All Cuban-owned assets in the United States were frozen.
1969 – The U.S. Patent Office issued a patent for the game “Twister.”
1970 – The San Francisco Giant’s Jim Ray Hart became the first National League player in 59 seasons to collect six runs batted (RBI) during a single inning.
1981 – The Solar Challenger became the first solar-powered airplane to cross the English Channel.
1986 – Kurt Waldheim was inaugurated as president of Austria despite controversy over his alleged ties to Nazi war crimes.
1997 – The Mayo Clinic and the U.S. government warned that the diet-drug combination known as “fen-phen” could cause serious heart and lung damage.
1997 – NATO invited Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to join the alliance in 1999.
2000 – J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” was released in the U.S. It was the fourth Harry Potter book.
2003 – Sudan Airways Flight 139 crashes near Port Sudan Airport during an emergency landing attempt, killing all 117 people on board.
2010 – The Solar Impulse completed the first 24-hour flight by a solar-powered plane.
2011 – Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.
2014 – Israel launches an offensive on Gaza amid rising tensions following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Wolfram Müller, German runner
- 1981 – Anastasia Myskina, a Russian tennis player
- 1982 – Sophia Bush, American actress, and director
- 1982 – Hakim Warrick, American basketball player
- 1983 – John Bowker, American baseball player
- 1983 – Rich Peverley, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1986 – Jaime Garcia, Mexican baseball player
- 1986 – Renata Costa, Brazilian footballer
- 1988 – Miki Roqué, Spanish footballer (d. 2012)
- 1988 – Jesse Sergent, New Zealand cyclist
- 1988 – Dave Taylor, Australian rugby league player
- 1989 – Yarden Gerbi, Israeli world champion and Olympic bronze medalist judoka
- 1989 – Tor Marius Gromstad, Norwegian footballer (d. 2012)
- 1991 – Virgil van Dijk, Dutch footballer
- 1992 – Ariel Camacho, Mexican singer-songwriter (d. 2015)
- 1992 – Son Heung-min, Korean footballer
- 1997 – Bryce Love, American football player
- 1998 – Jaden Smith, American actor, and rapper