Today is Wednesday, July 18, the 199th day of 2018 with 166 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn and Venus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray in 1811; Titanic survivor Margaret Brown “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” in 1867; playwright Clifford Odets in 1906; comedian Red Skelton in 1913; South African leader/Nobel Peace Price laureate Nelson Mandela in 1918; astronaut/Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, in 1921; gold medal ice skater Dick Button in 1929 (age 89); journalist/author Hunter S. Thompson in 1937; pop singer Dion DiMucci in 1939 (age 79); actor James Brolin in 1940 (age 78); former baseball Manager Joe Torre in 1940 (age 78); singer Martha Reeves in 1941 (age 77); publisher Steve Forbes in 1947 (age 71); businessman Richard Branson in 1950 (age 68); country singer Ricky Skaggs in 1954 (age 64); actor Elizabeth McGovern in 1961 (age 57); talk show host Wendy Williams in 1964 (age 54); actor Vin Diesel in 1967 (age 51); rapper MIA, born Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, in 1975 (age 43); actor Kristen Bell in 1980 (age 38); actor Michiel Huisman in 1981 (age 37); actor Priyanka Chopra in 1982 (age 36); actor Chace Crawford in 1985 (age 33); hockey player Jamie Benn in 1989 (age 29); singer Avery Wilson in 1995 (age 23).
On this date in history:
In 1925, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf was published. The book hit bookstores in Germany for the first time in 70 years in 2016 and became a best-seller. The new version included 3,500 annotations and 2,000 pages versus the original’s 800.
In 1938, Douglas Corrigan took off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York for a return flight to California but lost his bearings in the clouds, he said, and flew instead to Ireland. He became an instant celebrity called “Wrong Way” Corrigan.
In 1939, after a sneak preview of The Wizard of Oz, producers debated about removing “Over the Rainbow” because it seemed to slow things down. The song later contributed to the evolution of the rainbow flag as a gay icon.
In 1969, a car driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., plunged from a bridge into a tidal pond at Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts, killing his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.
In 1976, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the first person in Olympic Games history to be awarded the score of a perfect 10 in gymnastics.
In 1977, Vietnam was admitted to the United Nations.
In 1984, a gunman opened fire at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif., killing 21 people.
In 1994, a car bombing in Buenos Aires killed about 100 people in or near a building that housed Jewish organizations.
In 2007, Michael Vick, quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League, was indicted on federal charges related to an illegal dogfighting operation. He was subsequently sentenced to 23 months in prison.
In 2011, Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen took over as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, vowing to keep “relentlessly pressuring the enemy.” Allen replaced Army Gen. David Petraeus, who became director of the CIA.
In 2012, victims of a suicide bomb at Syria’s National Security Bureau included Defense Minister Daoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat (President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law), former Defense Minister Hassan Turkomani and NSB chief Hisham Ikhtiar.
In 2013, Detroit became the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy.
In 2014, in a unanimous vote, the U.S. Sentencing Commission approved guidelines under which 46,000 imprisoned federal drug offenders were eligible for reduced sentences.
A thought for the day: “Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.” — Booker T. Washington
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