On This Day…

Hello.

Welcome to your weekend. We are glad you are here!

The week can sometimes feel long, stressful, or just plain overwhelming at times. Hey, we get it and we’re with you.

That’s why we like to slow things down a bit on Saturday mornings with a simpler “scroll down memory lane.” It’s a way to look back at events that happened on this day in history before you head out into a new day of events. So, grab your favorite sippin’ drink and let’s scroll!

In 1926, Babe Ruth caught a baseball dropped from an altitude of 250 feet by a passing airplane during a stunt at New York’s Mitchell Field.  The ball was traveling about 100 miles-per-hour when it hit his glove.

In 1933, aviator Wiley Post completed his first around-the-world flight.  He traveled nearly 16-thousand miles in just over a week.

In 1934, notorious outlaw John Dillinger was shot and killed by FBI agents at Chicago’s Biograph Theatre.

In 1955, Vice President Richard Nixon chaired a cabinet meeting in Washington, DC.  It was the first time a vice president performed the task.

In 1969, Michigan-native Aretha Franklin was arrested for disorderly conduct within the metro-area of Detroit.  She had been involved in a minor traffic accident in a parking lot, and ended up trying to slap the two officers who had responded.

In 1975, Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee’s U.S. citizenship was restored by Congress.

In 1977, singer Tony Orlando announced his retirement from show business. 

In 1981, Turkish extremist Mehmet Ali Agca was sentenced to life in prison for shooting Pope John Paul the Second. 

In 1990, U.S. cyclist Greg LeMond won his third Tour de France.

In 1991, the Milwaukee Police arrested Jeffrey Dahmer.  He was suspected of killing 17 people.  Detectives found eleven skulls, three headless torsos and other body parts in his apartment.  Dahmer later confessed to the murders.

In 1992, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escaped from prison.

In 1994, former NFL running back star O.J. Simpson plead “absolutely 100-percent not guilty” of murder.

In 1995, a jury found Susan Smith guilty of first-degree murder for drowning her two young sons.  She was later sentenced to life in prison. 

In 1997, more than two-thousand mourners, including Princess Diana, Elton John and super models Naomi Campbell and Eva Herzigova, attended a memorial mass for the slain fashion designer Gianni Versace.

In 1999, the ashes of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn and her sister Lauren Bessette were cast into the sea off Martha’s Vineyard where the waters of the Atlantic Ocean claimed their lives days earlier in an airplane crash. 

In 2003, Uday and Qusay Hussein, the sons of ex-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein were killed in a fierce gun battle with U.S. troops in the Iraqi city of Mosul.  President Bush said the death of the two brothers was, quote, “further assurance to the Iraqi people that the regime is gone and won’t be back.” 

In 2003, former U.S. POW Jessica Lynch returned to her home state of West Virginia months after her highly publicized rescue by fellow U.S. soldiers in Iraq.  Lynch received three medals for her ordeal in Iraq.  The young woman’s unit was ambushed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

In 2003, Patti LaBelle, Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, Jon Secada and Reuben Blades were among the thousands of mourners who packed St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City to say goodbye to late Latin music legend Celia Cruz who died a week earlier at the age of 77.

In 2008, actress Estelle Getty died at the age of 84. She is best known for her role on the TV show “The Golden Girls.”

In 2009, the longest total eclipse of the 21st century plunged parts of Asia into darkness on this date.  People from all over the world crammed into a 155-mile-wide strip through India and China for a glimpse of the eclipse.  The event lasted six-minutes, 39-seconds over the Pacific Ocean and a little less over land. 

In 2011, more than 68 people were killed in Norway when a gunman opened fire at a youth camp.  And in a separate attack, a bomb detonated outside government offices in downtown Oslo, killing at least seven.  The suspect, a 32-year-old Norwegian man, allegedly admitted to carrying out both attacks. 

In 2012, the statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was removed from the school’s Beaver Stadium on this date.  The statue’s removal followed revelations that the legendary coach played a role in the cover up of the child sex abuse scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.  Paterno died on January 22, 2012, several months before the statue was removed.  Sandusky was convicted of multiple counts of child sex charges.  

In 2013, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton, welcomed their first child, Prince George, into the world at 4:24 pm London time.  The baby weighed eight pounds, six ounces at birth.

In 2016, nine people were killed and dozens more were injured when a gunman opened fire in front of a McDonalds at a Munich shopping center in Germany.  The 18-year-old suspect turned the gun on himself after wards.

In 2018, TV show “Supergirl” announced it was casting the first live-action transgender superhero to be played by transgender actor Nicole Maines.

In 2019, Forbes named NFL’s Dallas Cowboys as the most valuable sports team in the world.  They were valued at five-billion-dollars.  MLB’s New York Yankees came in second at four-point-six-billion-dollars and soccer team Real Madrid came in third place.

And that brings us here to this day. So whatever plans you have for your own 7.22.23 we wish you moments along the way to record in the pages of your own personal history books.