White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, right, talks with Missouri Governor John Ashcroft during Sununu’s visit to the National Governor’s Conference, Sunday, July 30, 1990 in Mobile, Ala. Sununu addressed the Governors on a view from the White House subject. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)

Today is Sunday, July 26, the 208th day of 2020. There are 158 days left in the year.

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Today’s Highlight in History

On July 26, 2002, the Republican-led House voted, 295-132, to create an enormous Homeland Security Department in the biggest government reorganization in decades.

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Rev. Al Sharpton, left, and Tawana Brawley walk to hold a news conference outside at Federal Court in Manhattan, July 30, 1990. The three attended the Central Park jogger trial where the defense continues to call witnesses for teenage defendant Yusef Salaam. (AP Photo/Joseph Major)

On this date

In 1775, the Continental Congress established a Post Office and appointed Benjamin Franklin its Postmaster-General.

In 1788, New York became the 11th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1908, U.S. Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte ordered creation of a force of special agents that was a forerunner of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In 1925, five days after the end of the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, prosecutor William Jennings Bryan died at age 65. (Although Bryan had won a conviction against John T. Scopes for teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, the verdict was later overturned.)

Stock car racer Richard Petty, of Randleman, N.C., sits in his Dodge Charger after qualifying Saturday, July 28, 1973 for Sunday's Acme Super Saver 500 race at Pocono International Raceway in Long Pond, Pa., with a speed of 147.372 miles per hour. Petty won Sunday's race, an exhibition that did not count toward the NASCAR championship. (AP Photo/Brian Horton)

In 1956, the Italian liner Andrea Doria sank off New England, some 11 hours after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm; at least 51 people died, from both vessels.

In 1971, Apollo 15 was launched from Cape Kennedy on America’s fourth successful manned mission to the moon.

In 1986, Islamic radicals in Lebanon released the Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, an American hostage held for nearly 19 months. American statesman W. Averell Harriman died in Yorktown Heights, New York, at age 94.

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In 1992, singer Mary Wells died in Los Angeles at age 49.

Cuban President Fidel Castro addresses a crowd on the 37th anniversary of the start of his revolution in Havana on Thursday, July 26, 1990. (AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi)

In 2013, Ariel Castro, the man who’d imprisoned three women in his Cleveland home, subjecting them to a decade of rapes and beatings, pleaded guilty to 937 counts in a deal to avoid the death penalty. (Castro later committed suicide in prison.)

In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

In 2017, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he would not “accept or allow” transgender people to serve in the U.S. military. (After a legal battle, the Defense Department approved a new policy requiring most individuals to serve in their birth gender.) A thrill ride broke apart at the Ohio State Fair, killing an 18-year-old high school student and injuring seven others.

Ten years ago: A U.N.-backed tribunal sentenced the Khmer Rouge’s chief jailer, Kaing Guek Eav (gang guhk eew), to 35 years for overseeing the deaths of up to 16,000 people in Cambodia, with 16 years shaved off for time already served, reducing his sentence to 19 years. A Spanish man who’d undergone the world’s first full face transplant appeared before TV cameras; the 31-year-old, identified only as “Oscar,” thanked his doctors and the family of the donor. Matt Garza pitched the first no-hitter in Tampa Bay Rays history, beating the Detroit Tigers 5-0.

Five years ago: Closing out a historic visit to the land of his father’s birth, President Barack Obama told Kenyans that their country was at a crossroads, and he urged them to “choose the path to progress” by continuing to root out corruption, eliminate income inequality and be more inclusive of women and girls. In a rare Sunday session, senior Senate Republicans lined up to rebuke Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz — without mentioning him by name — for harshly criticizing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Chris Froome won his second Tour de France in three years. True crime author Ann Rule, 83, died in Burien, Washington. Bobbi Kristina Brown, the 22-year-old daughter of singer Whitney Houston, died in hospice care six months after she was found face-down in a bathtub in her suburban Atlanta townhome.

One year ago: The Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to tap billions of dollars in Pentagon funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico. U.S. regulators approved T-Mobile’s $26.5 billion takeover of rival Sprint, despite fears of higher prices and job cuts. U.S. officials said Iran had test-launched a medium-range ballistic missile inside its borders, defying Trump administration demands that it curtail the weapon program.

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JULY 27

On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to adopt the first of three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon, charging he had personally engaged in a course of conduct designed to obstruct justice in the Watergate case.

In 1794, French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre was overthrown and placed under arrest; he was executed the following day.

In 1960, Vice President Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

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JULY 28

On July 28, 1945, the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nations Charter by a vote of 89-2.

In 1929, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was born in Southampton, N.Y.

In 1976, an earthquake devastated northern China, killing at least 242,000 people, according to an official estimate.

In 1984, the Los Angeles Summer Olympics opened.

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JULY 29

On July 29, 1967, an accidental rocket launch on the deck of the supercarrier USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin resulted in a fire and explosions that killed 134 servicemen. (Among the survivors was future Arizona senator John McCain, a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who narrowly escaped with his life.)

In 1968, Pope Paul the Sixth reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s stance against artificial methods of birth control.

In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford became the first U.S. president to visit the site of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland.

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JULY 30

On July 30, 1945, the Portland class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, having just delivered components of the atomic bomb to Tinian in the Mariana Islands, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine; only 317 out of nearly 1,200 men survived.

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure making “In God We Trust” the national motto, replacing “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of many, one).

In 1975, former Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in suburban Detroit; although presumed dead, his remains have never been found.

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JULY 31

On July 31, 1777, during the Revolutionary War, the Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was made a major-general in the American Continental Army.

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow.

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AUG. 1

On August 1, 1957, the United States and Canada announced they had agreed to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

In 1714, Britain’s Queen Anne died at age 49; she was succeeded by George I.

In 1914, Germany declared war on Russia at the onset of World War I.

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