July 20 - Dimples

Dimples

This Day In History

1738

Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan.

1807

Nicéphore Niépce is awarded a patent by Napoleon Bonaparte for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône in France.

1866

Battle of Lissa – The Austrian Navy , led by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, defeats the Italian Navy near the island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea. (One of the first battles between ironclads; one of the last to involve intentional ramming.)

1903

The Ford Motor Company ships its first car.

1940

California opens its first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway.

1960

Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government.

1969

Apollo 11 successfully makes the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon almost 7 hours later.

1976

Viking 1 successfully lands on Mars.

Famous Birthdays

356 BC

Alexander the Great, Macedonian king and conqueror of Persia (d. 323 BC)

1304

Francesco Petrarch, Italian poet (d. 1374)

1822

Gregor Mendel, German scientist, father of modern genetics (d. 1884)

1847

Max Liebermann, German artist (d. 1935)

1873

Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazilian aviator (d. 1932)

1919

Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer and explorer (d. 2008)

1938

Dame Diana Rigg, English actress
Natalie Wood, American actress (d. 1981)

1944

Olivier de Kersauson, French sailor

1945

John Lodge, English musician (The Moody Blues)

1947

Carlos Santana, Mexican-born American guitarist

1948

Muse Watson, American actor

1955

Jem Finer, English musician and composer (The Pogues)
1967
Reed Diamond, American actor