By The Associated Press

Today in History

Today is Friday, July 23, the 204th day of 2021. There are 161 days left in the year.

Todayís Highlight in History:

On July 23, 2003, Massachusettsí attorney general issued a report saying clergy members and others in the Boston Archdiocese probably had sexually abused more than 1,000 people over a period of six decades.

On this date:

In 1829, William Austin Burt received a patent for his ìtypographer,î a forerunner of the typewriter.

In 1945, French Marshal Henri Petain (ahn-REEí pay-TANí), who had headed the pro-Axis Vichy (vee-shee) government during World War II, went on trial, charged with treason. (He was convicted and condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison. On this date in 1951, Petain died in prison.)

In 1958, Britainís Queen Elizabeth II named the first four women to peerage in the House of Lords.

In 1967, five days of deadly rioting erupted in Detroit as an early morning police raid on an unlicensed bar resulted in a confrontation with local residents that escalated into violence that spread into other parts of the city; 43 people, mostly Blacks, were killed.

In 1982, actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were killed when a helicopter crashed on top of them during filming of a Vietnam War scene for ìTwilight Zone: The Movie.î (Director John Landis and four associates were later acquitted of manslaughter charges.)

In 1983, an Air Canada Boeing 767 ran out of fuel while flying from Montreal to Edmonton; the pilots were able to glide the jetliner to a safe emergency landing in Gimli, Manitoba. (The near-disaster occurred because the fuel had been erroneously measured in pounds instead of kilograms at a time when Canada was converting to the metric system.)

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush announced his choice of Judge David Souter of New Hampshire to succeed the retiring Justice William J. Brennan on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1997, the search for Andrew Cunanan (koo-NANí-an), the suspected killer of designer Gianni Versace (JAHí-nee vur-SAHí-chee) and others, ended as police found his body on a houseboat in Miami Beach, an apparent suicide.

In 1999, space shuttle Columbia blasted off with the worldís most powerful X-ray telescope and Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a U.S. space flight.

In 2003, a new audiotape purported to be from toppled dictator Saddam Hussein called on Iraqis to resist the U.S. occupation.

In 2006, Tiger Woods became the first player since Tom Watson in 1982-83 to win consecutive British Open titles.

In 2017, a tractor trailer was found in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas, crammed with dozens of immigrants; ten died and many more were treated at a hospital for dehydration and heat stroke.