Today in History July 19...

Birthdates which occurred on July 19:
1898 Herbert Marcuse Berlin, communist philosopher (One-Dimensional Man)
1922 George McGovern (US Sen-D-SD), pres candidate (D-1972)
1947 Bernie Leadon guitarist/vocalist (Eagles-Take it Easy)
1947 Brian May guitarist (Queen-We are the Champions)
1948 Keith Godchaux keyboardist (Grateful Dead)
1954 Kathleen Turner actress (Accidental Tourist, Jewel of Nile)

Deaths which occurred on July 19:
1958 Robert Earl Hughes weighed 1,041 lbs (473 kg), dies at 32
1990 Johnny Wayne comedian (Wayne & Shuster), dies at 72 of cancer

On this day...
514 St Symmachus ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1510 38 Jews are burned at the stake in Berlin Prussia
1553 15-year-old Lady Jane Grey deposed as England's Queen after 9 days
1870 France declares war on Prussia; the Franco-Prussian war begins
1877 1st Wimbledon tennis championships held
1918 German armies retreat across Marne River in France (WW I)
1941 British PM Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign
1943 Allied air forces raid Rome during WW II
1949 Laos becomes associated state within French Union
1952 15th modern Olympic games opens in Helsinki
1963 NASA civilian test pilot Joe Walker in X-15 reaches 105 km
1965 Shooting begins on Star Trek 2nd pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before"
1969 Apollo 11 goes into Moon orbit
1975 Apollo & Soyuz linked in orbit for 2 days, separate
1976 Rock group Deep Purple disbands
1979 Nicaragua Liberation Day; Sandinistas take over from Somoza
1980 Moscow Summer Olympics begin, US & others boycott
1982 David S Dodge becomes the 1st hostage in Lebanon
1984 1st female to captain a 747 across the Atlantic (Lynn Rippelmeyer)
1986 Caroline Kennedy weds Edwin A Schlossberg in Centerville, Mass
1991 Miss Black America contestant accuses Mike Tyson of rape
2781 -BC- Presumed start of Egyptian calendar

Holidays:
Burma : Martyrs' Day
Laos : Independence Day (1949)

Religious Observances:
Old Catholic : Feast of St Vincent de Paul, confessor

Thought for the day : "Every noble work is at first impossible."

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>