On This Day:
Thursday July 11, 2013

This is the 192nd day of the year, with 173 days remaining in 2013.

Fact of the Day: Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth made his major league debut on July 11, 1914 for the Boston Red Sox and pitched a 4-3 victory against the Cleveland Naps. He emerged as, some say, the greatest hitter ever to have played the game. However, he was a hopeless spendthrift. He lucked out when he met an agent who obtained huge contracts for him and managed his finances so that he could live comfortably during retirement. Ruth maintained his popularity with the American public, and after his death from throat cancer at least 75,000 people viewed his body in Yankee Stadium and some 75,000 attended his funeral service.

Holidays

Mongolia: National Day / Naadam National Holiday.
Feast day of St. Benedict, St. John of Bergamo, St. Drostan, St. Olga, and St. Hidulf.

Events

1533 - Pope Clement VII excommunicated England's King Henry VIII.
1804 - Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary and his long-time antagonist, Alexander Hamilton, in a pistol duel in New Jersey.
1945 - The U.S. first used napalm on Japanese forces holed up on Luzon in the Philippines.
1955 - The Air Force Academy was dedicated at Lowry Air Base in Colorado.
1966 - "The Newlywed Game" premiered on TV.
1975 - Excavations at the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, near the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an, uncovered an army of 8,000 life-size terracotta warriors dating to about 206 BC.
1977 - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.
1979 - The abandoned U.S. space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth after being in space since 1973, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia.
1985 - Explosions sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbor, New Zealand.
1987 - It was formally announced that the world population had reached 5 billion, double the level of 1950.
1995 - President Bill Clinton established full diplomatic relations with Vietnam, about two decades after the fall of Saigon.
2006 - Microsoft discontinues official support for Windows 98 and Windows Me.

Births

1274 - Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland (1306-1329).
1767 - John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States of America (1825-1829).
1899 - E.B. (Elwyn Brooks) White, American author, essayist.
1915 - Yul Brynner (Taidje Khan), Russian-born American actor.
1934 - Giorgio Armani, Italian fashion designer.
1953 - Leon Spinks, American boxer.
1959 - Richie Sambora, American musician.

Deaths

1937 - George Gershwin, American composer.
1989 - Laurence Olivier, English actor and director.