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***Today is Thursday, July 24, the 206th day of 2008. There are 160 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
- On July 24, 1858, Republican senatorial candidate Abraham Lincoln formally challenged Democrat Stephen A. Douglas to a series of political debates; the result was seven face-to-face encounters.
- In 1783, Latin American revolutionary Simon Bolivar was born in Caracas, Venezuela.
- In 1847, Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah.
- In 1862, the eighth president of the United States, Martin Van Buren, died in Kinderhook, N.Y.
- In 1866, Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War.
- In 1929, President Hoover proclaimed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy.
- In 1937, the state of Alabama dropped charges against four of the nine young black men accused of raping two white women in the "Scottsboro Case."
- In 1948, Henry A. Wallace accepted the presidential nomination of the Progressive Party in Philadelphia.
- In 1959, during a visit to Moscow, Vice President Richard M. Nixon engaged in his famous "Kitchen Debate" with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
- In 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle stirred controversy during a visit to Montreal, Canada, when he declared, "Vive le Quebec libre!" (Long live free Quebec!)
- In 1974, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Nixon had to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor.
- A gunman burst into the U.S. Capitol, opening fire and killing two police officers before being shot and captured. (The accused shooter, Russell Eugene Weston Jr., is being held in a federal mental facility.)
- The motion picture "Saving Private Ryan," starring Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg, was released.
- The House and Senate intelligence committees issued their final report on the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, citing countless blunders, oversights and miscalculations that prevented authorities from stopping the attackers.
- President Bush, speaking at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina, sought to justify the Iraq war by citing intelligence reports he said showed a link between al-Qaida's operation in Iraq and the terror group that attacked the United States on Sept. 11.
- A grand jury in New Orleans refused to indict Dr. Anna Pou, who was accused of murdering four seriously ill hospital patients with drug injections during the desperate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
- Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, sentenced to life in prison in Libya for allegedly infecting children with HIV, were released after 8 1/2 years behind bars.
- The U.S. minimum wage rose 70 cents to $5.85 an hour, the first increase in a decade.
- Movie director Peter Yates is 79.
- Actress Jacqueline Brookes is 78.
- Actor John Aniston (TV: "Days of Our Lives") is 75.
- Political cartoonist Pat Oliphant is 73.
- Comedian Ruth Buzzi is 72.
- Actor Mark Goddard is 72.
- Actor Dan Hedaya is 68.
- Actor Chris Sarandon is 66.
- Comedian Gallagher is 62.
- Actor Robert Hays is 61.
- Former Republican national chairman Marc Racicot is 60.
- Actor Michael Richards is 59.
- Actress Lynda Carter is 57.
- Movie director Gus Van Sant is 56.
- Country singer Pam Tillis is 51.
- Actor Kadeem Hardison is 43.
- Actress-singer Jennifer Lopez is 40.
- Actress Laura Leighton is 40.
- Actor John P. Navin Jr. is 40.
- Basketball player-turned-actor Rick Fox is 39.
- Actress-singer Kristin Chenoweth is 38.
- Actor Eric Szmanda is 33.
- Actress Rose Byrne is 29.
- Actress Summer Glau is 27.
- Actress Elisabeth Moss is 26.
- Actress Anna Paquin is 26.
- Actress Mara Wilson is 21.
- TV personality Bindi Irwin is 10.
"History, n. An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools."
From "The Cynic's Word Book" by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?).
"Let's all be careful out there!"
