Today in History: July 14, 2019 - cleveland.com

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Sunday, July 14, 2019

On this date:

In 1789, in an event symbolizing the start of the French Revolution, citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside.

In 1798, Congress passed the Sedition Act, making it a federal crime to publish false, scandalous or malicious writing about the United States government.

In 1912, American folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie ("This Land Is Your Land") was born in Okemah, Okla.

In 1921, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco (SAK'-oh) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were convicted in Dedham, Massachusetts, of murdering a shoe company paymaster and his guard. (Sacco and Vanzetti were executed six years later.)

In 1933, all German political parties, except the Nazi Party, were outlawed.

In 1966, the city of Chicago awoke to the shocking news that eight student nurses had been brutally slain during the night in a South Side dormitory. Drifter Richard Speck was convicted of the mass killing and condemned to death, but had his sentence reduced to life in prison, where he died in 1991.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in New York.

In 2003, newspaper columnist Robert Novak publicly revealed the CIA employment of Valerie Plame, wife of Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador in Africa who said the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq.

In 2004, the Senate scuttled a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. (Forty-eight senators voted to advance the measure — 12 short of the 60 needed — and 50 voted to block it).

In 2013, thousands of demonstrators across the country protested a Florida jury's decision the day before to clear George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

In 2016, terror struck Bastille Day celebrations in the French Riviera city of Nice (nees) as a large truck plowed into a festive crowd, killing 86 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State extremists; the driver was shot dead by police.

In 2017, a Russian-American lobbyist said he attended a June 2016 meeting with President Donald Trump's son that was billed as part of a Russian government effort to help the Republican campaign.

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