Sunday bathers at Coney Island on the 30th of July, 1922.
Monthly Archives: July 2016
On this day…
On this day: Ukrainian and American Olympic Champions
The 29th of July 1996 was the date for many of the gymnastics finals at the Atlanta Olympics.
Despite her country struggling to find funds in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian gymnast Lilia Podkopayeva qualified for both the balance beam and floor exercise finals.
Podkopayeva, aged seventeen, had won the prestigious individual all around gold four days earlier, won the silver medal on beam, and then finished her Olympics with a gold medal for her floor exercise.
Podkopayeva and Miller receive their beam medals.
Podkopayeva would win gold a few hours later.
US gymnast Shannon Miller, a nineteen-year-old national star who came home from the 1992 Olympics with five medals but no gold, won her first individual title on the balance beam.
Schoolboys in Ireland
Major Ruttledge-Fair documented life in Connemara in western Ireland towards the end of the nineteenth century. This picture is of young boys standing outside their schoolhouse in 1892.
On this day: the opening of the Los Angeles Olympics
The 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics opened on the 28th of July. The event was heavily boycotted by Eastern Bloc countries including the Soviet Union, in response to the West’s boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games.
Los Angeles and Tehran were the only two cities to express an interest in hosting the event, but because of Iran’s political situation, and then the fact it was another country that chose to boycott, Los Angeles became the hosts of the Games by default.
The Olympics were officially opened by US President Ronald Reagan.
On this day: women’s Olympic gymnastics
The gold medal in the 1992 women’s Olympic gymnastics team competition was decided on the 28th of July in Barcelona. The event was won by the Unified Team, made up of countries of the former USSR.
Despite the common misconception all gymnasts on this team were from Russia, only one of the six competitors was.
From left to right are: Rozalia Galiyeva (Uzbekistan), Tatiana Gutsu (Ukraine), Tatiana Lysenko (Ukraine), Oksana Chusovitina (Uzbekistan), Elena Grudneva (Russia), and Svetlana Boginskaya (Belarus).
Tatiana Gutsu would go on to win individual gold, silver and bronze.
Tatiana Lysenko would win an individual gold and bronze.
Oksana Chusovitina would go on to have a record-breaking career, competing all the way through to the London 2012 Olympics, and winning a silver medal in Beijing in 2008.
The twentieth anniversary of the Atlanta Olympics bombing.
Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia, USA was bombed on the 27th of July, 1996. Two people were killed and 111 injured when Eric Robert Rudolph placed a US military pack containing three pipe bombs surrounded by nails in the so-called “town square” of the Olympic venue.
He later said he committed the attack because he didn’t agree with women having the right to abortion.
Rudolph later confessed to the bombings of women’s health clinics and gay bars.
On this day: the release of A Wild Hare
A Wild Hare, the animated short film that introduced Bugs Bunny, premiered on the 27th of July, 1940.
The film also set the distinct character traits for another Looney Tunes character, Elmer Fudd.
Bugs Bunny is unnamed in the film, but would be named in his next film the following year.
A Wild Hare went on to receive an Oscar nomination.
On this day: the premiere of Pride and Prejudice
The 1940 film version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice premiered in the United States on the 26th of July. Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier played Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, though originally Norma Shearer and Clark Gable were to star.
Polish poster.
The film was intended to be filmed in England, but the outbreak of World War Two meant production was moved.
Also posted HERE
On this day: the aeroplane that landed with no fuel, no engines and no power.
On the 23rd of July, 1983 Air Canada flight 143 landed on a racing track in Gimli, Manitoba after experiencing both a fuel shortage and the failure of both engines.
All sixty-nine people on board survived.
After the landing.
The ground crew responsible for the refuelling had calculated the fuel in pounds instead of kilograms, which meant the plane was flying on less than half what it needed to reach its destination.
When one engine failed, the pilots assumed the other would not. However it did, and seconds later the entire plane lost all power, with everything in the cockpit going blank.
One of the pilots had previously served at RCAF Station Gimli, and suggested they try and land there. However, what neither he nor the air traffic controller knew was that part of the base had been converted into a motor racing circuit, including a karting track and an area for drag racing.
Additionally, a Winnipeg Sports Car Club race was underway.
After the landing.
With no working engines, the plane made next to no noise as it approached the track, and so the people on the ground had no warning.
Even so, the pilots managed to land the plane without anyone on the ground being hurt, though one pilot reported two boys were riding their bikes only feet from where the plane came to a stop.
The only injuries experienced by passengers happened when they were escaping the plane. Because the rear of the plane was higher than normal, the escape slides were not long enough to reach the ground.
In Times Gone By... 
