President Gerald Ford congratulates the crews of Apollo and Soyuz after they met in space, July 17, 1975. The president, speaking from his White House Oval Office in Washington, watched the linkup and then chatted with both crews. (AP Photo/John Duricka)

Today is Sunday, July 12, the 194th day of 2020. There are 172 days left in the year.

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Today’s Highlight

in History

On July 12, 1967, rioting erupted in Newark, New Jersey, over the police beating of a Black taxi driver; 26 people were killed in the five days of violence that followed.

Britain's former Prime Minister Winston Churchill speaking in the City Hall, Luxembourg, July 15, 1946, after he was made an Honourary Citizen. (AP Photo)

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On this date

In 1543, England’s King Henry VIII married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr.

In 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill authorizing the Army Medal of Honor.

In 1909, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing for a federal income tax, and submitted it to the states. (It was declared ratified in February 1913.)

Comedienne Phyllis Diller arrives in the Westwood Village section of Los Angeles on Tuesday, July 13, 1982, where she applyies for Medicare in advance of her 65th birthday Saturday. (AP Photo/Lennox McLendon)

In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was flown by helicopter from the White House to a secret mountaintop location as part of a drill involving a mock nuclear attack on Washington.

In 1962, The Rolling Stones played their first-ever gig at The Marquee in London.

In 1974, President Richard Nixon signed a measure creating the Congressional Budget Office. Former White House aide John Ehrlichman and three others were convicted of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Daniel Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist.

In 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale announced his choice of U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running-mate; Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major-party ticket.

In 1991, a Japanese professor (Hitoshi Igarashi) who had translated Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” was found stabbed to death, nine days after the novel’s Italian translator was attacked in Milan.

Jimmy Stewart poses for a photo in Los Angeles, July 12, 1990. (AP Photo/Bob Galbraith)

In 1994, President Bill Clinton, visiting Germany, went to the eastern sector of Berlin, the first U.S. president to do so since Harry Truman.

In 2003, the USS Ronald Reagan, the first carrier named for a living president, was commissioned in Norfolk, Va.

In 2001, Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant tortured in a New York City police station, agreed to an $8.7 million settlement with the city and its police union.

In 2005, Prince Albert II of Monaco acceded to the throne of a 700-year-old dynasty.

Ten years ago: Roman Polanski was declared a free man, no longer confined to house arrest in his Alpine villa, after Swiss authorities rejected a U.S. request for the Oscar-winning director’s extradition because of a 32-year-old sex conviction. NBA commissioner David Stern fined Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert $100,000 for releasing a sharp-tongued statement shortly after LeBron James announced he was leaving the Cavaliers for Miami.

Five years ago: On the final day of his three-nation South American tour, Pope Francis put into practice his call for the world’s poor and powerless to not be left on the margins of society by visiting a flood-prone slum in Paraguay and insisting that the Catholic Church be a place of welcome for all — sick and sinners especially. Defending champion Novak Djokovic outplayed Roger Federer in four sets, 7-6 (1), 6-7 (10), 6-4, 6-3, to win his third Wimbledon title and ninth Grand Slam championship. Olivia Jordan of Oklahoma was crowned Miss USA during the pageant in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

One year ago: The major U.S. stock indexes closed at record highs, with the S&P 500 ending above 3,000 for the first time. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta announced that he was stepping down, amid renewed focus over his handling of a 2008 secret plea deal with financier Jeffrey Epstein when Acosta was the U.S. attorney in Miami. Roger Federer beat longtime rival Rafael Nadal in four sets in a Wimbledon semifinal, advancing to a final against defending champion Novak Djokovic.

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JULY 13

On July 13, 2013, a jury in Sanford, Florida, cleared neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman of all charges in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Black teenager whose killing unleashed furious debate over racial profiling, self-defense and equal justice.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to be U.S. Solicitor General; Marshall became the first Black jurist appointed to the post. (Two years later, Johnson nominated Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court.)

In 1973, former presidential aide Alexander P. Butterfield revealed to Senate Watergate Committee staff members the existence of President Richard Nixon’s secret White House taping system. (Butterfield’s public revelation came three days later.)

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JULY 14

On July 14, 2016, terror struck Bastille Day celebrations in the French Riviera city of Nice (nees) as a large truck plowed into a festive crowd, killing 86 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State extremists; the driver was shot dead by police.

In 1980, the Republican national convention opened in Detroit, where nominee-apparent Ronald Reagan told a welcoming rally he and his supporters were determined to “make America great again.”

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JULY 15

On July 15, 1799, French soldiers in Egypt discovered the Rosetta Stone, which proved instrumental in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

In 1870, Georgia became the last Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union. Manitoba entered confederation as the fifth Canadian province.

In 1975, three American astronauts blasted off aboard an Apollo spaceship hours after two Soviet cosmonauts were launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for a mission that included a linkup of the two ships in orbit.

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JULY 16

On July 16, 1945, the United States exploded its first experimental atomic bomb in the desert of Alamogordo (ahl-ah-moh-GOHR’-doh), New Mexico; the same day, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis left Mare (mar-AY’) Island Naval Shipyard in California on a secret mission to deliver atomic bomb components to Tinian Island in the Marianas.

In 1862, Flag Officer David G. Farragut became the first rear admiral in the United States Navy.

In 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on the first manned mission to the surface of the moon.

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JULY 17

On July 17, 1944, during World War II, 320 men, two-thirds of them African-Americans, were killed when a pair of ammunition ships exploded at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California.

In 1918, Russia’s Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.

In 2009, former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite died in New York at 92.

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JULY 18

On July 18, 2013, Detroit, which was once the very symbol of American industrial might, became the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, its finances ravaged and its neighborhoods hollowed out by a long, slow decline in population and auto manufacturing.

In 1918, South African anti-apartheid leader and president Nelson Mandela was born in the village of Mvezo.

In 1944, Hideki Tojo was removed as Japanese premier and war minister because of setbacks suffered by his country in World War II. American forces in France captured the Normandy town of St. Lo.

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