Today is Wednesday, July 31, the 213th day of the 12 months 2024. There are 153 days left within the 12 months.
Today in history:
On July 31, 2012, swimmer Michael Phelps won his nineteenth Olympic medal on the Summer Olympics in London, making him probably the most successful Olympian of all time. (He finished his profession with a complete of 28 Olympic medals, including 23 gold medals.)
Also on this date:
In 1715, a fleet of Spanish ships carrying gold, silver and jewels sank during a hurricane off the east coast of Florida; greater than 1,000 of the roughly 2,500 crew members died.
In 1919, the Weimar Constitution of Germany was adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic.
In 1945, Pierre Laval, Prime Minister of the Nazi Vichy regime in France, surrendered to US authorities in Austria and was extradited to France, which later tried and executed him.
In 1957, the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations to detect Soviet bombers approaching North America, was put into operation.
In 1964, the US lunar probe Ranger 7 took the primary close-up photographs of the lunar surface.
In 1971, Apollo 15 crew members David Scott and James Irwin became the primary astronauts to make use of a lunar rover on the lunar surface.
In 1972, vice presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton withdrew from his candidacy because the Democratic candidate together with George McGovern after it was revealed that Eagleton had undergone electroshock therapy to treat depression.
In 1991, President George HW Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) in Moscow.
In 2020, a federal appeals court overturned the death sentence imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev within the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, saying the judge overseeing the case had not adequately screened the jury for possible bias. (The Supreme Court later reinstated the sentence.)
Today's birthdays:
- Jazz composer and musician Kenny Burrell is 93.
- Actress Geraldine Chaplin is 80.
- Former film studio manager Sherry Lansing is 80.
- Singer Gary Lewis is 78.
- Evonne Goolagong Cawley, a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, is 73.
- Actor Michael Biehn is 68.
- Rock singer and musician Daniel Ash (Love and Rockets) is 67.
- Entrepreneur Mark Cuban is 66.
- Rock musician Bill Berry (REM) is 66.
- Jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan is 65.
- Actor Wesley Snipes is 62.
- The musician Fatboy Slim is 61.
- The creator JK Rowling is 59.
- Actor Dean Cain is 58.
- Actor Jim True-Frost is 58.
- Actor Ben Chaplin is 55.
- Actress Eve Best is 53.
- Football Hall of Fame member Jonathan Ogden is 50.
- Country singer and musician Zac Brown is 46.
- Actor, producer and author BJ Novak is 45.
- Football Hall of Fame member DeMarcus Ware is 42.
- NHL center Evgeni Malkin is 38.
- NASCAR driver Kyle Larson is 32.
- Hip-hop artist Lil Uzi Vert is 29.
- Actor Rico Rodriguez (TV: “Modern Family”) is 26.
Originally published:
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