Today in History

Today is Thursday, July 22, the 203rd day of 2021. There are 162 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln presented to his Cabinet a preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

On this date:

In 1587, an English colony fated to vanish under mysterious circumstances was established on Roanoke Island off North Carolina.

In 1934, bank robber John Dillinger was shot to death by federal agents outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater, where he had just seen the Clark Gable movie “Manhattan Melodrama.”

In 1937, the U.S. Senate rejected President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court.

In 1942, the Nazis began transporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka concentration camp. Gasoline rationing involving the use of coupons began along the Atlantic seaboard.

In 1946, the militant Zionist group Irgun blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people.

In 1963, Sonny Liston knocked out Floyd Patterson in the first round of their rematch in Las Vegas to retain the world heavyweight title.

In 1975, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in voting to restore the American citizenship of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

In 1991, police in Milwaukee arrested Jeffrey Dahmer, who later confessed to murdering 17 men and boys (Dahmer ended up being beaten to death by a fellow prison inmate).

In 1992, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxury prison near Medellin (meh-deh-YEEN’). (He was slain by security forces in December 1993.)

In 2011, Anders Breivik (AHN’-durs BRAY’-vihk), a self-described “militant nationalist,” massacred 69 people at a Norwegian island youth retreat after detonating a bomb in nearby Oslo that killed eight others in the nation’s worst violence since World War II.

In 2013, the Duchess of Cambridge, the former Kate Middleton, gave birth to a son, Prince George, who became third in line to the British throne after Prince Charles and Prince William.

In 2015, a federal grand jury indictment charged Dylann Roof, the young man accused of killing nine Black church members in Charleston, South Carolina, with 33 counts including hate crimes that made him eligible for the death penalty. (Roof would become the first person sentenced to death for a federal hate crime; he is on death row at a federal prison in Indiana.)

Ten years ago: A jury in Cleveland convicted Anthony Sowell of killing 11 poor, drug-addicted women whose remains were found in his home and backyard. (Sowell was later sentenced to death; he died in prison in February 2021.) President Barack Obama formally signed off on ending the ban on gays serving openly in the military.

Five years ago: Democrat Hillary Clinton told supporters in a text message that she had chosen Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. A gunman opened fire at a mall in Munich, Germany, killing nine people before taking his own life. Thomas Sutherland, a teacher who was held captive in Lebanon for more than six years until he was freed in 1991, died in Fort Collins, Colorado, at age 85.

One year ago: The mayor of Portland, Oregon, was among those tear-gassed by U.S. government agents as he appeared outside a federal courthouse during raucous protests; Ted Wheeler and hundreds of others were objecting to the presence of federal police sent by President Donald Trump. Trump announced that he would send federal agents to Chicago and to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime; the White House said the program would be expanded into Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee. California surpassed New York as the state with the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases. Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser issued an executive order making face masks mandatory outside the home; the order did not apply to “any employees of the federal government while they are on duty.” A tally by The Associated Press found that more than 60 Confederate statues, monuments or markers had been removed from public land across the country since the May 25 death of George Floyd. Twitter said it would crack down on accounts and content related to the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon.

Today’s Birthdays: Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., is 98. Author Tom Robbins is 89. Actor Louise Fletcher is 87. R&B singer Chuck Jackson is 84. Actor Terence Stamp is 83. Singer George Clinton is 80. Actor-singer Bobby Sherman is 78. Former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, is 78. Movie writer-director Paul Schrader is 75. Actor Danny Glover is 75. Singer Mireille Mathieu is 75. Actor-comedian-director Albert Brooks is 74. Rock singer Don Henley is 74. Movie composer Alan Menken is 72. Singer-actor Lonette McKee is 68. Jazz musician Al Di Meola (mee-OH’-lah) is 67. Actor Willem Dafoe is 66. Actor John Leguizamo is 61. R&B singer Keith Sweat is 60. Actor Joanna Going is 58. Actor Rob Estes is 58. Folk singer Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls) is 58. Actor-comedian David Spade is 57. Actor Patrick Labyorteaux (LAH’-bor-toh) is 56. Rock musician Pat Badger is 54. Actor Irene Bedard is 54. Actor Rhys Ifans (rees EYE’-fanz) is 54. Actor Diana Maria Riva is 52. Actor Colin Ferguson is 49. Actor/singer Jaime Camil is 48. Rock musician Daniel Jones is 48. Singer Rufus Wainwright is 48. Actor Franka Potente (poh-TEN’-tay) is 47. Actor Parisa Fitz-Henley is 44. Actor A.J. Cook is 43. Actor Keegan Allen is 34. Actor Camila Banus is 31. Actor Selena Gomez is 29. Britain’s Prince George of Cambridge is eight.