1536 The authority of the pope was declared void in England.

1872 Britain introduced the concept of voting by secret ballot.

1927 Baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb got his 4,000th career hit.

1940 The Democratic National Convention in Chicago nominated President Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented third term in office.

1944 Hideki Tojo was removed as Japanese premier and war minister because of setbacks suffered by his country in World War II.

1969 A car driven by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard. His passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, died.

1984 A gunman opened fire at a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif., killing 21 people before being shot dead by police.

1984 Walter F. Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination in San Francisco.

1989 Actress Rebecca Schaeffer was shot to death at her Los Angeles home by an obsessed fan. The killing prompted California in 1990 to pass the nation's first anti-stalking law.

1998 A 23-foot tsunami along the coast of Papua New Guinea killed nearly 3,000 people.

1999 David Cone of the New York Yankees pitched the 14th perfect game in modern major league baseball history in a game against the Montreal Expos.

2003 Basketball star Kobe Bryant was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman at a Colorado spa. (The charge was later dropped because the woman did not want to go ahead with a trial.)

2003 The body of British scientist David Kelly, a weapons expert at the center of a storm over British intelligence on Iraq, was found, an apparent suicide.

2005 An unrepentant Eric Rudolph was sentenced in Birmingham, Ala., to life in prison for an abortion clinic bombing that killed an off-duty police officer and maimed a nurse.

2005 Retired Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces during the Vietnam War, died at age 91.

2007 An underground steam pipe exploded on a New York City street, swallowing a tow truck and claiming the life of a woman who suffered a heart attack.

Current Birthdays

Nelson Mandela turns 90 years old today.

AP Photo/Akira Suemori Former South African president Nelson Mandela turns 90 years old today.

87 John Glenn
Astronaut; former U.S. senator, D-Ohio

79 Dick Button
Figure skater, sportscaster

70 Paul Verhoeven
Director ("Basic Instinct," "Robocop")

69 Brian Auger
Rock singer, musician

69 Dion DiMucci
Rock singer (Dion and the Belmonts)

68 James Brolin
Actor

68 Joe Torre
Baseball manager

67 Lonnie Mack
Blues guitarist

67 Martha Reeves
R&B singer (Martha and the Vandellas)

59 Craig Fuller
Rock singer (Little Feat, Pure Prairie League)

57 Margo Martindale
Actress

54 Ricky Skaggs
Country singer

50 Nigel Twist
Rock musician (The Alarm)

48 Anne-Marie Johnson
Actress

47 Elizabeth McGovern
Actress

46 John Hermann
Rock musician (Widespread Panic)

46 Jack Irons
Rock musician (Pearl Jam)

41 Vin Diesel
Actor

33 Torii Hunter
Baseball player

33 Daron Malakian
Rock musician (System of a Down)

30 Tony Fagenson
Rock musician (Eve 6)

30 Ben Sheets
Baseball player

29 Jared Hess
Director ("Napoleon Dynamite")

29 Jason Weaver
Actor

28 Kristen Bell
Actress ("Veronica Mars")

26 Ryan Cabrera
Rock singer

23 Chace Crawford
Actor ("Gossip Girl")

Historic Birthdays

Andrey Gromyko

7/18/1909 - 7/2/1989
Soviet statesman
(Go to obit.)

41 Hermann Von Reichenau
7/18/1013 - 9/24/1054
German poet, astronomer and mathematician

67 Robert Hooke
7/18/1635 - 3/3/1703
English physicist

69 Royall Tyler
7/18/1757 - 8/26/1826
American lawyer, teacher and dramatist

52 William Makepeace Thackeray
7/18/1811 - 12/24/1863
English novelist

72 Philip Snowden
7/18/1864 - 5/15/1937
English Labor Party leader

58 Vidkun Quisling
7/18/1887 - 10/24/1945
Norwegian official; collaborated with Germany during World War II

76 Victor Gruen
7/18/1903 - 2/14/1980
Austrian-born American architect and city planner

85 S. I. Hayakawa
7/18/1906 - 2/27/1992
Canadian-born American scholar and U. S. senator (1977-83)

57 Clifford Odets
7/18/1906 - 8/14/1963
American stage and motion-picture writer and director

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