Today's e-Edition
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Today's e-Edition
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Today is Monday, July 20, the 201st day of 2026. There are 164 days left in the year.
On July 20, 1917, America\u2019s World War I draft lottery began as Secretary of War Newton Baker, wearing a blindfold, reached into a glass bowl and pulled out a capsule containing the number 258 during a ceremony in the Senate office building.
In 1944, an attempt by a group of German officials to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb in a briefcase failed as the explosion only wounded the Nazi leader.
In 1951, Jordan\u2019s King Abdullah I was assassinated in Jerusalem by a Palestinian gunman who was shot dead on the spot by security.
In 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin \u201cBuzz\u201d Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon after reaching its surface in their Apollo 11 lunar module.
In 1976, America\u2019s Viking 1 robot spacecraft made a successful, first-ever landing on Mars.
In 1977, a flash flood hit Johnstown, Pennsylvania, killing more than 80 people and causing $350 million worth of damage.
In 1990, Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, one of the court\u2019s most liberal voices, announced he was stepping down.
In 1993, White House deputy counsel Vincent Foster Jr., 48, was found shot to death in a park near Washington, D.C.; it was ruled a suicide.
In 2006, the Senate voted 98-0 to renew the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act for another quarter-century.
In 2007, President George W. Bush signed an executive order prohibiting cruel and inhuman treatment, including humiliation or denigration of religious beliefs, in the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects.
In 2012, gunman James Holmes opened fire inside a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight showing of \u201cThe Dark Knight Rises,\u201d killing 12 people and wounding 70 others. (Holmes was later convicted of murder and attempted murder, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.)
In 2015, the United States and Cuba restored full diplomatic relations after more than five decades of frosty relations rooted in the Cold War.
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