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History

Local History

50 years ago: The 3M Club took qa 12-8 win over Kraft in a Womens Industrial League softball game.

10 years ago: The American Legion chose New Ulm Police Commander Myron Wieland as its Law Enforcement Officer of the Year for 2008.

5 years ago: Playback, the former New Ulm Public Library sculpture by London artist Helene Fesenmaier was rediscovered in City of New Ulm storage.

One year ago: Ted Marti, President of August Schell Brewing Company, was inducted into the Minnesota Business Hall of Fame.

And elsewhere…

Today is Thursday, July 26, the 207th day of 2018. There are 158 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight:

On July 26, 2002, the Republican-led House voted, 295-132, to create an enormous Homeland Security Department in the biggest government reorganization in decades.

On this date:

In 1775, the Continental Congress established a Post Office and appointed Benjamin Franklin its Postmaster-General.

In 1847, the western African country of Liberia, founded by freed American slaves, declared its independence.

In 1945, the Potsdam Declaration warned Imperial Japan to unconditionally surrender, or face “prompt and utter destruction.” Winston Churchill resigned as Britain’s prime minister after his Conservatives were soundly defeated by the Labour Party; Clement Attlee succeeded him.

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act, which reorganized America’s armed forces as the National Military Establishment and created the Central Intelligence Agency.

In 1953, Fidel Castro began his revolt against Fulgencio Batista with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks in eastern Cuba. (Castro ousted Batista in 1959.)

In 1986, Islamic radicals in Lebanon released the Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, an American hostage held for nearly 19 months.

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In 2006, in a dramatic turnaround from her first murder trial, Andrea Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity by a Houston jury in the bathtub drownings of her five children; she was committed to a state mental hospital. (Yates had initially been found guilty of murder, but had her conviction overturned.)

Five years ago: Ariel Castro, the man who’d imprisoned three women in his Cleveland home, subjecting them to a decade of rapes and beatings, pleaded guilty to 937 counts in a deal to avoid the death penalty. (Castro later committed suicide in prison.)

One year ago: President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he will not “accept or allow” transgender people to serve in the U.S. military. (The pronouncement was blocked by legal challenges, and the Pentagon began allowing transgender recruits to seek enlistment on January 1.)

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Robert Colbert is 87. Songwriter-music producer-label executive Fred Foster (co-writer of “Me and Bobby McGee”) is 87. Rock star Mick Jagger is 75. Rock musician Roger Taylor (Queen) is 69. Actress Susan George is 68. Olympic gold medal figure skater Dorothy Hamill is 62. Actor Kevin Spacey is 59. Actress Sandra Bullock is 54. Actor Jeremy Piven is 53. Actor Jason Statham is 51. Actor Cress Williams is 48. TV host Chris Harrison is 47. Actress Kate Beckinsale is 45. Actor Gary Owen is 45. Gospel/Contemporary Christian singer Rebecca St. James is 41. Actress Eve Myles is 40. Actress Juliet Rylance is 39. Actress Monica Raymund is 32. Actress Caitlin Gerard is 30. Actress Francia Raisa is 30. Christian rock musician Jamie Sharpe (Rush of Fools) is 29. Actress Bianca Santos is 28. Actress-singer Taylor Momsen is 25. Actress Elizabeth Gillies is 25.

Thought for Today: “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” — George Bernard Shaw (born this date in 1856, died 1950).

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