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Born on This Day

Edgar Degas

1834 - 1917

French Impressionist artist famous for his studies of movement, use of light and shadows and depictions of dancers.

Brian May

1947 -

A knighted English guitarist, songwriter, record producer and astrophysicist who co-founded the band Queen.

Benedict Cumberbatch

1976 -

English actor known for "Sherlock," "The Imitation Game" and "Doctor Strange."

Edgar DegasCorbis via Getty Images

Brian MayRedferns

Benedict CumberbatchWireImage

1952

JUL19

Air traffic controllers in Washington, D.C., detect UFOs over the White House and US Capitol building. More appear a week later, but the government dismisses the sightings as a harmless weather phenomenon.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on July 19th

Nero’s Rome burns

The great fire of Rome breaks out and destroys much of the city beginning on July 19 in the year 64. Despite the well-known stories, there is no evidence that the Roman emperor, Nero, either started the fire or played the fiddle while it burned. Still, he did use the disaster to further his political […]

Lady Jane Grey deposed as Queen of England

After only nine days as the monarch of England, Lady Jane Grey is deposed in favor of her cousin Mary. The 15-year-old Lady Jane, beautiful and intelligent, had only reluctantly agreed to be put on the throne. The decision would result in her execution. Lady Jane Grey was the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII and […]

Doc Holliday kills for the first time

Doc Holliday commits his first murder, killing a man for shooting up his New Mexico saloon. Despite his formidable reputation as a deadly gunslinger, Doc Holliday only engaged in eight shootouts during his life, and it has been verified that he killed two men. Still, the smartly dressed ex-dentist had a remarkably fearless attitude toward […]

George Washington Carver begins experimental project with Henry Ford

The agricultural chemist George Washington Carver, head of Alabama’s famed Tuskegee Institute, arrives in Dearborn, Michigan at the invitation of Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company. Born into slavery in Missouri during the Civil War, Carver managed to get a high school education while working as a farmhand in Kansas in his late 20s. […]

America bombs Rome

On July 19, 1943, the United States bombs railway yards in Rome in an attempt to break the will of the Italian people to resist—as Hitler lectures their leader, Benito Mussolini, on how to prosecute the war further. On July 16, President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill appealed to the Italian civilian […]

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United States withdraws offer of aid for Aswan Dam

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announces that the United States is withdrawing its offer of financial aid to Egypt to help with the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. The action drove Egypt further toward an alliance with the Soviet Union and was a contributing factor to the Suez Crisis later […]

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