July 20th

Aurora shooting. A gunman, James Holmes, opened fire in a movie theater during the premier of the Dark Night Rises in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted almost totally along party lines, 13-6, to approve Elena Kagan to be the Supreme Court's fourth female justice.

After 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic, astronaut Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule was recovered.

White House deputy counsel Vince Foster was found shot to death in a park near Washington, D.C., in an apparent suicide.

A federal appeals court set aside Oliver North's Iran-Contra convictions.

Treasure hunters found the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank off the coast of Key West, Fla., in 1622 during a hurricane. The ship contained over $400 million in coins and silver ingots.

A flash flood hit Johnstown, Pa., killing 80 people and causing $350 million in damage.

US Viking 1 lands on Mars at Chryse Planitia, 1st Martian landing.

Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Also known as Cyprus Peace Operation or Operation Attila, the invasion was a response to a coup in Cyprus.

1st Moon Landing: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from Apollo 11, 530 million watch live global broadcast.

Sirima Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) became the world's first woman prime minister.

Armistice for Indo-China signed, Vietnam separates into North & South.

King Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated.

Adolf Hitler was only slightly wounded when a bomb planted by would-be assassins exploded at the German leader's Rastenburg headquarters.

Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson becomes the first woman to preside over the US House of Representatives.

The World War I draft lottery began.

Fugitive Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull surrendered to federal troops.

British Columbia joined the confederation as a Canadian province.

The Congress of the Confederate States began holding sessions in Richmond, Va.

Colombia declared independence from Spain.