Today in History

Today is Wednesday, July 22, the 204th day of 2020. 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 1933, American aviator Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world as he returned to New York's Floyd Bennett Field after traveling for 7 days, 18 and 3/4 hours.

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 1957, Walter "Fred" Morrison applied for a patent for a "flying toy" which became known as the Frisbee.

In 1967, American author, historian and poet Carl Sandburg died at his North Carolina home at age 89.

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. (He was slain by security forces in December 1993.)

In 2011, Anders Breivik, 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.

Ten years ago: President Hugo Chavez severed Venezuela's diplomatic relations with neighboring Colombia over claims he was harboring leftist guerrillas. The city manager, assistant manager and police chief of Bell, California, resigned after outraged residents found out through a Los Angeles Times investigation that the officials were making a total of more than $1.6 million a year. Six people were killed when a Greyhound bus crashed into an overturned SUV on a highway in Fresno, California. (Authorities later said the SUV driver, who died in the collision, was drunk.)

Five years ago: A Soyuz space capsule blasted off for the International Space Station, docking with the orbiting outpost nearly six hours later. Prosecutors in Colorado urged the death penalty for Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes, saying he deliberately and cruelly killed 12 people (Holmes ended up being sentenced to life in prison when the jury could not unanimously agree on execution). 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.)

One year ago: Teammates, family and friends gathered at a Catholic church in Santa Monica, California, to mourn Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, who had been found dead in his Texas hotel room on July 1. "Old Town Road," by Lil Nas X, remained at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for a 16th week, tying a record set by Mariah Carey and Luis Fonsi. Equifax agreed to pay at least $700 million to settle lawsuits over a 2017 data breach that exposed the Social Security numbers and other private information of nearly 150 million Americans.

Today's Birthdays: Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., is 97. Author Tom Robbins is 88. Actress Louise Fletcher is 86. Rhythm-and-blues singer Chuck Jackson is 83. Actor Terence Stamp is 82. Game show host Alex Trebek is 80. Singer George Clinton is 79. Actor-singer Bobby Sherman is 77. Former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, is 77. Movie writer-director Paul Schrader is 74. Actor Danny Glover is 74. Singer Mireille Mathieu is 74. Actor-comedian-director Albert Brooks is 73. Rock singer Don Henley is 73. Movie composer Alan Menken is 71. Singer-actress Lonette McKee is 67. Jazz musician Al Di Meola is 66. Actor Willem Dafoe is 65. Actor John Leguizamo is 60. Rhythm-and-blues singer Keith Sweat is 59. Actress Joanna Going is 57. Actor Rob Estes is 57. Folk singer Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls) is 57. Actor-comedian David Spade is 56. Actor Patrick Labyorteaux is 55. Rock musician Pat Badger is 53. Actress Irene Bedard is 53. Actor Rhys Ifans is 53. Actress Diana Maria Riva is 51. Actor Colin Ferguson is 48. Actor/singer Jaime Camil is 47. Rock musician Daniel Jones is 47. Singer Rufus Wainwright is 47. Actress Franka Potente is 46. Actress Parisa Fitz-Henley is 43. Actress A.J. Cook is 42. Actor Keegan Allen is 33. Actress Camila Banus is 30. Actress Selena Gomez is 28. Britain's Prince George of Cambridge is seven.