Today's Highlight in History:
On July 12, 100 B.C., Roman dictator Julius Caesar was born.
On this date:
In 1543, England's King Henry VIII married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr.
In 1690, Protestant forces led by William of Orange defeated the Roman Catholic army of James II at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.
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In 1812, United States forces led by Gen. William Hull entered Canada during the War of 1812 against Britain. However, Hull retreated shortly thereafter to Detroit.
In 1817, naturalist-author Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Mass.
In 1854, George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera, was born in Waterville, N.Y.
In 1862, Congress authorized the Medal of Honor.
In 1948, the Democratic national convention opened in Philadelphia.
In 1972, George McGovern won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in Miami Beach.
In 1977, President Carter defended Supreme Court decisions limiting government payments for poor women's abortions, saying, "There are many things in life that are not fair."
In 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale announced he'd chosen 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.
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Ten years ago: 196 people were killed when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck northern Japan. In Somalia, a mob avenging a deadly United Nations attack on the compound of Mohamed Farrah Aidid killed an Associated Press photographer and three Reuter employees.
Five years ago: In Ballymoney, Northern Ireland, three young brothers who had been asleep in their beds burned to death in a sectarian attack. France beat Brazil 3-0 for its first World Cup soccer championship.
One year ago: The Senate adopted a ban on personal loans from companies to their top officials, a practice that had benefited executives from Enron to WorldCom. The U.N. Security Council agreed to exempt U.S. peacekeepers from war crimes prosecution for a year, ending a threat to U.N. peacekeeping operations.
