July 18 is the 200th day of the year. There are 166 days remaining until the end of the year.
64 Great Fire of Rome begins (Nero didn't fiddle; he lyred)
1801 Matthew Flinders leaves England to circumnavigate and map Australia, the name he gives to the continent. I guess he didn't pay attention to Amerigo Vespucci’s precedent in continent naming.
1863 Battle of Fort Wagner/Morris Island – the first formal African American military unit, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, fails in their assault on Confederate-held Battery Wagner. The deserving movie fails to win the Oscar. . .
1870 Papal infallibility is proclaimed . . . by the Pope.
1936 Oscar Mayer Wienermobile takes to the roads
1969 Teddy Kennedy swims away from Chappaquiddick Island. Mary Jo Kopechne doesn’t.
1984 McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: in a fast-food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty opens fire, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others before being shot dead by police. Service at McDonald’s has improved significantly ever since.
2003 Kobe Bryant is charged with sexually assaulting a 19 year girl who willingly went to his hotel room, most assuredly intending to read him passages from the Book of Mormon.
1940 James Brolin [Craig Kenneth Bruderlin], actor / Mr Streissand
February 12 is the 43rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. If the ancient Mayans were correct, there are 313 days remaining until the end of time.
1878 Frederick Thayer patents catcher's mask (pat # 200,358)
1880 National Croquet League organizes in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love
1984 Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean skate "Bolero" at Olympics in one of the most transcendent moments in all of sport and art
1809 Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president reportedly spent intimate moments with other men while in bed
1809 Charles Darwin, naturalist/persona non grata in the state of Kansas
