Moments in Time – July 4, 2018

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• On July 21, 1861, war erupts on a large scale when Confederate forces under P.T. Beauregard turn back Union Gen. Irvin McDowell’s troops in Virginia. Inexperienced soldiers on both sides slugged it out in a chaotic battle that resulted in a humiliating retreat by the Yankees.
• On July 22, 1916, in San Francisco, a bomb hidden in a suitcase at a Preparedness Day parade on Market Street kills 10 people and wounds 40. The parade was organized by the Chamber of Commerce in support of America’s possible entry into World War I.
• On July 18, 1925, seven months after being released from Landsberg jail, Adolf Hitler publishes the first volume of his personal manifesto, “Mein Kampf,” the blueprint for his plan of Nazi world domination.
• On July 17, 1938, Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan takes off from New York, ostentatiously pointed west. Twenty-eight hours later, Corrigan landed in Dublin, Ireland, and asked, “Where am I?” He claimed he got lost.
• On July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project comes to an explosive end as the first atom bomb is successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico. In 1939, Albert Einstein had written to President Roosevelt supporting the theory that an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction had potential as a basis for a weapon of mass destruction.
• On July 19, 1956, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announces that the United States was withdrawing its offer of $70 million in financial aid to Egypt to help with the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. The Soviets rushed to Egypt’s aid.
• On July 20, 1976, the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, the Viking 1 lander becomes the first spacecraft to land safely on Mars. It sent back the first close-up photographs of the rust-colored Martian surface.

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