Moments in Time – June 26, 2024

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• On July 8, 1918, Ernest Hemingway was working as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross while serving on the Italian front in World War I when he was struck by an Austrian mortar shell as he handed out chocolate to soldiers in a dugout.
• On July 9, 1993, British forensic scientists announced a positive identification of the remains of Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II, his wife, Czarina Alexandra, and three of their daughters. Mitochondrial DNA was used on the family’s bones, which had been excavated from a mass grave near Yekaterinburg two years earlier.
• On July 10, 1985, conservation group Greenpeace’s flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, sank in New Zealand’s Auckland Harbor after French agents in diving gear planted a bomb on the vessel’s hull. The ship had been preparing for a protest voyage to a French nuclear test site in the South Pacific.
• On July 11, 2005, Hurricane Dennis blasted onto the East Coast near Pensacola Beach with a storm surge of 15 feet, wiping out power for over 1 million in Florida and Alabama, with Mississippi also being declared a disaster zone along with those two states. The hurricane had already hit Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti earlier in the week, causing 21 fatalities and massive property damage.
• On July 12, 1967, race riots broke out in Newark, New Jersey, after a Black cab driver was arrested and beaten by police. The riots resulted in 24 deaths, 1,100 wounded, 1,300 people arrested and property losses in excess of $5 million. The violence was believed to have been triggered by a number of factors, including rumors that the cabbie had died and charges that the police involved were brutally racist, along with poor mayoral leadership.
• On July 13, 1920, the U.S. Post Office banned customers from mailing children and animals. While it’s hard to believe such a ruling would even be necessary, officials wisely decreed it so after several cases involving parents dispatching a child and one person posting a skunk!
• On July 14, 1953, Egyptian politician Rawya Ateya became the first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.

© 2024 King Features Synd., Inc.