Today is Tuesday, July 8, the 189th day of 2026. There are 176 days left in the year.
Today in History
On July 8, 2018, divers rescued four of the 12 boys who had been trapped in a flooded cave in northern Thailand with their soccer coach for more than two weeks.
In 1776, Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, outside the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.
In 1853, an expedition led by U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay, Japan, on a mission to seek diplomatic and trade relations with the Japanese.
In 1889, the first issue of The Wall Street Journal was published.
In 1947, a New Mexico newspaper, the Roswell Daily Record, quoted officials at Roswell Army Air Field as saying they had recovered a flying object that crashed onto a ranch; officials then said it was actually a weather balloon.
In 1950, President Harry S. Truman named Gen. Douglas MacArthur commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea.
In 1972, the Nixon administration announced a deal to sell $750 million in grain to the Soviet Union.
In 1994, Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s communist leader since 1948, died at age 82.
In 2000, Venus Williams beat Lindsay Davenport for her first Grand Slam title, becoming the first Black female champion at Wimbledon since Althea Gibson in 1958.
In 2011, the 135th and final space shuttle mission began when space shuttle Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center.
In 2021, President Joe Biden said the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan would end on Aug. 31.
Original reporting: Texarkana Gazette — read the source article.
