TODAY IN HISTORY 1903 - The newly formed Ford Motor Company took its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850 two-cylinder Model A automobile with a tonneau (or backseat). The car, produced at Fords plant on Mack Street (now Mack Avenue) in Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a week later. 1971 - During a live television and radio broadcast, President Richard Nixon stuns the nation by announcing that he will visit communist China the following year. The statement marked a dramatic turning point in U.S.-Chinese relations. Nixon undertook his historic visit to China the following year, thus beginning a long and slow process of normalization of relations between the Peoples Republic of China and the United States. 1988 - Die Hard, an action film starring Bruce Willis as wisecracking New York City cop John McClane, opens in theaters across the United States. A huge box-office hit, the film established Willis as a movie star and spawned several sequels. 1997 - Spree killer Andrew Cunanan murders world-renowned Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace on the steps outside his Miami mansion. Versace was shot twice in the head, and Cunanan fled. Versaces killing set off a nationwide manhunt for Cunanan, who was famous for his chameleon-like ability to appear differently in every picture taken of him. However, on July 23, the search ended just 40 blocks away from Versaces home on a two-level houseboat that Cunanan had broken into. There, police found him dead from a self-inflicted bullet wound from the same gun that took the lives of two of his victims. He left no suicide note.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:00:01 +0000
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