USS Constellation (Courtesy National Archives, NAID 513001)

Today in History

• The last all-sail warship built by the US Navy, the USS Constellation, is commissioned (1854*)
• The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution is certified (1868)
• The US begins its 19-year occupation of Haiti (1915)
• A Silent Parade takes place in New York City to protest violence against African Americans (1917)
• US President Herbert Hoover orders the military to evict the “Bonus Army” (1932)
• The B-17 flies for the first time (1935)
• A B-25 crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building, killing 14 (1945)

* The memoirs of the Sergeant of Marines aboard the USS Constellation on its first Mediterranean cruise are in the Timespinner Press book The Letters of William Philip Schwartz. Schwartz, the first person to ever take photographs in a war zone, fought in the Indian Wars, the Mexican-American Wars, adventured in the Gold Rush and in the Pacific, and much more.

Birthdays

• Gerard Manley Hopkins, poet (1844)
• Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, royal (1860)
• Beatrix Potter, children’s book writer and illustrator (1866)
• Marcel Duchamp, painter and sculptor (1887)
• Rudy Vallée, actor and singer (1901)
• Earl Tupper, invented Tupperware (1907)
• Frankie Yankovic, “America’s Polka King” (1915)
• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady, socialite, and editor (1929)
• Philip Proctor, member of Firesign Theater (1940)
• Bill Bradley, basketball player and politician (1943)
• Jim Davis, cartoonist, created Garfield (1945)
• Jonathan Edwards, singer-songwriter (1946)
• Sally Struthers, actress (1947)
• Georgia Engel, actress (1948)
• Vida Blue, baseball player (1949)
• Terry Fox, runner and activist (1958)
• Lori Loughlin, actress (1964)
• Elizabeth Berkley, actress (1974)

Deaths

• Robert Blackadder, bishop (1508)
• Thomas Cromwell, chancellor of the exchequer (1540)
• Cyrano de Bergerac, poet and playwright (1655)
• Antonio Vivaldi, composer (1741)
• Johann Sebastian Bach, composer (1975)
• Maximilien Robespierre, revolutionary leader (1794)
• Marie Dressler, actress and singer (1934)
• Frank Loesser, composer (1969)
• Roger Tory Peterson, ornithologist (1996)
• Eileen Brennan, actress (2013)
• Margot Adler, journalist (2014)

Holidays and Celebrations

• Buffalo Soldiers Day (US)
• Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval (Canada)
• Fiestas Patrias (Peru)
• Liberation Day (San Marino)
• National Milk Chocolate Day (US)
• Olavsoka Eve (Faroe Islands)
• World Hepatitis Day

July 28 is the 209th day of the year (210th in leap years). There are 156 days remaining until the end of the year.