Epic Idiot's what happened
On This Day

July 22

2003
Iraq War: American troops kill Saddam Hussein's two sons, Uday and Qusay, during a raid on a home in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

1991
Jeffrey Dahmer: Milwaukee police find human body parts in his apartment. He admitted to killing and dismembering 17 men.

1980
TV Strike: The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild go on strike, delaying the start of the fall TV season. The strike ended October 3.

1933
First around-the-world solo flight is completed, by Wiley Post in the Winnie Mae. The flight began on July 15.

1932
Federal Home Loan Bank Board is established, supervise and regulate savings institutions.

1861
Civil War: Congress declares that the war is not being fought to end slavery, but to preserve the Union.

1973     d. 2005
Ronald Ray Howard, American criminal, "Rap Music Killer." He executed for the 1992 murder of a state trooper. He claimed the anti-police rap music he was listening to made him to do it.

1964
John Leguizamo, Emmy-winning Columbian actor. Film: Spawn (1997, Clown/Violator) and Ice Age (2002, voice of Sid).

1964
David Spade, American actor, comedian. TV: Saturday Night Live (1990-96) and Just Shoot Me! (1997), Film: Tommy Boy (1995), Joe Dirt (2001).

1955
Willem Dafoe, American actor. Film: Platoon (1986, Sgt. Elias), Mississippi Burning (1988), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988, title role), and Spider-Man (2002, Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin).

1947
Don Henley, American drummer, with The Eagles, Take It Easy (1972), Hotel California (1976, #1), and Smuggler's Blues (1985).

1947
Albert Brooks (Albert Einstein), American actor, writer, and brother of Super Dave Osborne.

1946
Danny Glover, American actor. Film: Lethal Weapon (1987) and Antz (1998, voices of various ants).

1940
Alex Trebek, Canadian-born game show host. TV: The $128,000 Question and Jeopardy!

1934
Louise Fletcher, American Oscar-winning actress. TV: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Kai Winn Adami). Film: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975, Oscar, evil Nurse Ratched).

1932
Oscar de la Renta, Spanish fashion designer.

1928
Orson Bean (Dallas Frederick Burrows), American comic, quiz-show panelist. TV: To Tell the Truth.

1923
Bob Dole, American politician, Senator (R-Kansas, 1969-96), Senate Minority Leader.

1898     d. 1976
Alexander Calder, American sculptor, painter. He invented the mobile (1931). He is one of the most famous artists of the 20th century.

1890     d. 1995
Rose Kennedy, American first mother, mother of John F. Kennedy.

1888     d. 1973
Selman Abraham Waksman, Ukrainian-born American Nobel-winning microbiologist. While a professor at Rutgers University, he and student Albert Schatz discovered streptomycin, the first antibiotic to successfully treat tuberculosis (1944). He also coined the term "antibiotic," which means "against life."

1888     d. 1967
Floretta McCutcheon, American bowler. Although considered the greatest woman bowler of all time, she had never held a bowling ball until she was 33.

1887     d. 1975
Gustav Hertz, German quantum physicist. He and James Franck received the Nobel Prize for Physics (1925) for confirming the quantum theory that energy can be absorbed by an atom only in definite amounts.

1884     d. 1930
Rev. William Archibald Spooner, Spoonerisms are named after him (The reversal of the first parts of words in a sentence). He once called Queen Victoria "queer old dean" and asked if it was "kisstomary to cuss the bride."

1849     d. 1887
Emma Lazarus, American poet who wrote the poem that appears on the Statue of Liberty.

1822     d. 1884
Gregor Johann Mendel, Austrian monk, botanist. His experiments with the garden pea constitute the basis of modern genetics. His work was all but ignored until 1900.

1784     d. 1846
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, German astronomer. He was the first to measure the distance to a star other than the Sun (1838, 61 Cygni at 11.4 light years).

1519     d. 1591
Innocent IX, Italian religious leader, 230th Pope (Oct. - Dec. 1591).

2003     b. 1964
Uday Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti, eldest son of Saddam Hussein and his first wife. In 1988, at a party thrown in the honor of the wife of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Uday beat to death his father's personal valet with a cane in front of horrified guests before finishing him off with an electric carving knife. The valet had recently introduced his father Saddam to a beautiful, younger woman who later became Saddam's second wife. Uday took this as an insult to his mother.

1993     b. 1928
Roscoe Robinson Jr., American brigadier general, first black U.S. four-star general.

1980     b. 1904
Marty Mann, American social activist, founder of the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (1944).

1967     b. 1878
Carl Sandburg, American Pulitzer-winning poet and Lincoln biographer.

1934     b. 1903
John Dillinger, American outlaw, bank robber, noted for his daring prison escapes. Although he was supposedly killed outside a Chicago movie house by FBI agents, the autopsy, witnessed by more than 40 doctors, had several notable discrepancies: The wrong eye color, height, weight, and no mention of certain known scars.

1932     b. 1866
Reginald Fessenden, Canadian inventor. He invented the radio transmission method of continuous wave and made the first long-range radio transmission of voice (1906).

1932     b. 1869
Florenz Ziegfeld, American theatrical producer, creator of Ziegfeld Follies (1907).

1916     b. 1849
James Whitcomb Riley, American author, The Hoosier Poet, wrote the poem Little Orphan Annie.

1915     b. 1827
Sir Sandford Fleming, Canadian railroad engineer. He was responsible for establishing time zones (1878). He also designed the first Canadian postage stamp (1851).

1903     b. 1810
Cassius Marcellus Clay, American politician, anti-slavery advocate. He published the abolitionist weekly The True American (1845) and served as U.S. minister to Russia (1861-69).

1869     b. 1806
John Augustus Roebling, German-born American civil engineer, designer of the Brooklyn Bridge. His use of wire rope enabled him to build suspension bridges thought impossible by other engineers. He died of tetanus from injuries received while inspecting the Brooklyn Bridge.

1826     b. 1746
Giuseppe Piazzi, Italian astronomer. He was the first to discover an asteroid (1801, Ceres).

1704     b. 1620
Peregrine White, the first child born of English parents in New England. He was born aboard the Mayflower just off of Cape Cod.

1676     b. 1590
Clement X, Italian religious leader, 239th Pope (1670-76).

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