TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JULY 10
1609 The Catholic states in Germany set up a league under the leadership of Maximilian of Bavaria.
1629 1st non-Separatist Congregational Church in America founded (Salem, MA)
1679 The British crown claims New Hampshire as a royal colony.
1775 Horatio Gates, issues order excluding blacks from Continental Army
1778 In support of the American Revolution, Louis XVI declares war on England.
1890 Wyoming becomes the 44th state.
1893 Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the first successful open-heart surgery, without the benefit of penicillin or blood transfusion.
1900 ‘His Master’s Voice’, was registered with the U.S. Patent Office. The logo of the Victor Recording Company, and later, RCA Victor, shows the dog, Nipper, looking into the horn of a gramophone machine.
1925 The trial of Tennessee teacher John T. Scopes opens, with Clarence Darrow appearing for the defense and William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution.
1951 Armistice talks to end the Korean War began at Kaesong.
1953 American forces withdraw from Pork Chop Hill in Korea after heavy fighting.
1960 Belgium sends troops to the Congo to protect whites as the Congolese Bloodbath begins, just 10 days after the former colony became independent of Belgian rule.
1985 Coca-Cola Co. announces it will resume selling “old formula Coke,” following a public outcry and falling sales of its “new Coke.”
1985 French foreign intelligence agents blow up the Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor, New Zealand to prevent it interfering with French nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira is killed.
1991 Boris Yeltsin is sworn in as the first elected president of the Russian Federation, following the breakup of the USSR.
1998 The Diocese of Dallas agreed to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who said they were molested by 52-year-old Rudolph ‘Rudy’ Kos, who is now serving a life sentence in prison.
1998 The U.S. military delivered the remains of Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Blassie to his family in St. Louis. He had been placed in Arlington Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown in 1984. His identity had been confirmed with DNA tests.
2002 The United States Senate gives final approval to bury all of the country’s nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, Nevada about 80 miles from Las Vegas.
2003 Spain opened its first mosque (in Granada) since the Moors were expelled in 1492.
2012 The American Episcopal Church becomes the first to approve a rite for blessing gay marriages
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **