Thursday, July 30th
The 211th day of 2009.
There are 154 days left in the year.
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Today's Highlights in History
On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Only 316 out of 1,196 men survived the sinking and shark-infested waters. (Go to article.)
On July 30, 1863, Henry Ford, the American automobile manufacturer who founded the Ford Motor Company, was born. Following his death on April 7, 1947, his obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)
Editorial Cartoon of the Day
On July 30, 1881, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about European colonialism in Africa. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)
On this date in:
1619 The first representative assembly in America convened in Jamestown, Va.
1729 The city of Baltimore was founded.
1792 The French national anthem, "La Marseillaise" by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, was first sung in Paris.
1863 American automaker Henry Ford was born in Dearborn Township, Mich.
1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill creating a women's auxiliary agency in the Navy known as Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES.
1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare bill into law.
1971 Apollo 15 astronauts David R. Scott and James B. Irwin landed on the moon.
1975 Former Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in suburban Detroit. He is presumed dead, though his remains have never been found.
1996 Actress Claudette Colbert died at age 92.
2002 Expelled from Congress a week earlier, an unrepentant James A. Traficant Jr. was sentenced to eight years behind bars for corruption.
2002 WNBA player Lisa Leslie of the Los Angeles Sparks became the first woman to dunk in a professional game during her team's 82-73 loss to the Miami Sol.
2003 Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, who discovered Elvis Presley, died at age 80.
2007 Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman died at age 87.
2007 Hall of Fame football coach Bill Walsh died at age 75.
Current Birthdays
Simon Baker turns 40 years old today.
AP Photo/Evan Agostini Actor ("The Mentalist") Simon Baker turns 40 years old today.
82 Richard Johnson
Actor
76 Edd "Kookie" Byrnes
Actor
73 Buddy Guy
Blues guitarist
70 Peter Bogdanovich
Director
70 Eleanor Smeal
Feminist activist
68 Paul Anka
Singer
64 David Sanborn
Jazz saxophonist
62 William Atherton
Actor
62 Arnold Schwarzenegger
Governor of California, actor
61 Jean Reno
Actor
61 Otis Taylor
Blues guitarist
59 Frank Stallone
Actor
55 Ken Olin
Actor
53 Delta Burke
Actress ("Designing Women")
51 Richard Burgi
Actor
51 Kate Bush
Rock singer
51 Neal McCoy
Country singer
49 Richard Linklater
Director
48 Laurence Fishburne
Actor ("C.S.I.")
46 Lisa Kudrow
Actress ("Friends")
46 Danny Roberts
Country musician (The Grascals)
45 Vivica A. Fox
Actress
45 Dwayne O'Brien
Country musician (Little Texas)
41 Terry Crews
Actor ("Everybody Hates Chris")
39 Christopher Nolan
Director ("The Dark Night," "Batman Begins")
38 Tom Green
Actor, comedian
38 Brad Hargreaves
Rock musician (Third Eye Blind)
38 Christine Taylor
Actress
36 Dean Edwards
Actor, comedian
35 Hilary Swank
Actress
32 Jaime Pressley
Actress
29 Seth Avett
Country singer, musician (The Avett Brothers)
27 Yvonne Strahovski
Actress ("Chuck")
Historic Birthdays
Henry Ford
7/30/1863 - 4/7/1947
American industrialist who changed production with his assembly line methods
(Go to obit.)
84 Michael Morris Killanin
7/30/1914 - 4/25/1999
Irish author and president of the International Olympic Committee
83 C. Northcote Parkinson
7/30/1909 - 3/9/1993
English historian, author, and formulator of "Parkinson's Law"
88 Henry Moore
7/30/1898 - 8/31/1986
English sculptor; one of the greatest of the 20th century
85 Casey Stengel
7/30/1890 - 9/29/1975
American professional baseball player and manager
92 Vladimir Zworykin
7/30/1889 - 7/29/1982
Russian-born American inventor and the father of television
74 Robert McCormick
7/30/1880 - 4/1/1955
American newspaper editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune
72 Richard Burdon Haldane
7/30/1856 - 8/19/1928
Scottish lawyer, philosopher, and statesman
30 Emily Bronte
7/30/1818 - 12/19/1848
English novelist and poet; wrote "Wuthering Heights"
62 Giorgio Vasari
7/30/1511 - 6/27/1574
Italian painter, architect, historian and writer
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