12th July: Today In History

Today is Wednesday, July 12, the 193rd day of 2017. There are 172 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

Events:

1967:  Rioting erupted in Newark, New Jersey, over the police beating of a black taxi driver; 26 people were killed in the five days of violence that followed.

1543:  England’s King Henry VIII married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr.

1817:  Author, poet and naturalist Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts.

1862:  During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill authorizing the Army Medal of Honor.

1909:  The House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing for a federal income tax, and submitted it to the states. (It was declared ratified in February 1913.)

1917:  Artist Andrew Wyeth was born in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

1948:  The Democratic National Convention, which nominated President Harry S. Truman for a second term of office, opened in Philadelphia.

1957:  President Dwight D. Eisenhower was flown by helicopter from the White House to a secret mountaintop location as part of a drill involving a mock nuclear attack on Washington.

1977:  President Jimmy Carter defended Supreme Court limits on government payments for poor women’s abortions, saying, “There are many things in life that are not fair.”

1984:  Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale announced his choice of U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running-mate; Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major-party ticket.

1988:  Democracy  presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis tapped Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas as his running-mate.

1994:  President Bill Clinton, visiting Germany, went to the eastern sector of Berlin, the first U.S. president to do so since Harry Truman.

2001:  Abner Louima (loo-EE’-mah), the Haitian immigrant tortured in a New York City police station, agreed to an $8.7 million settlement with the city and its police union.

Birthdays:

Movie director Monte Hellman is 88.

Actor-comedian Bill Cosby is 80.

Singer-musician Christine McVie is 74.

Actress Denise Nicholas is 73.

Singer-songwriter Butch Hancock is 72.

Fitness guru Richard Simmons is 69.

Actor Jay Thomas is 69.

Singer Walter Egan is 69.

Writer-producer Brian Grazer is 66.

Quotes Of The Day:

Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought that no one but myself