• Today is "Night Heat" Day, marking the premier of the joint CTV-CBS series on this date in 1985. Filmed in Toronto, it starred Scott Hylands and Jeff Wincott..

     • Today is Inspire Your Heart With the Arts Day.

     • Tonight is Play An Old Game You Haven’t Played in Years Night. Maybe Yahztee, Scrabble, Monopoly, or Canasta. Hungry Hippo?

     • Today is Scotch Tape Day, marking the birth of the sticky stuff to 3M Company's Richard Drew on this date in 1928.

     • Today is Independence Day in Nauru.

On this date in . . .

1505: King Philip of Austria defeated the Marquis de Dorset in history's first international tennis match. It wasn't much of a contest, since the Marquis still played with the palm of his hand and King Philip used a new fangled "battoir."

1874: Jesse James robbed a train near Gadshill, Missouri, than gave the engineer a press release about the robbery and ordered him to pass it along to the local newspaper.

1947: The coldest official temperature in Canadian history was recorded at Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, when the mercury fell to 62 degrees below zero (F).

1949: The first TV daytime soap opera, "These Are My Children," was telecast from NBC in Chicago. The show’s creator, Irna Phillips, would later produce "As the World Turns" and "The Guiding Light."

1961: A chimpanzee named Ham became the first U.S. animal sent into space. Ham traveled 158 miles above the Earth in the Mercury-Redstone-2 space capsule.

1971: Astronauts Alan Shepard Jr., Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon.

1972: Some 40,000 filed past singer Mahalia Jackson’s open coffin at Great Salem Baptist Church in Chicago. At Mahalia’s funeral the next day, Aretha Franklin sang "Precious Lord, Take My Hand."

1979: Singer Porter Wagoner went disco, appearing in a sequined leisure suit at Nashville’s Exit/In and performing disco versions of country standards.

1985: The last Jeep, the military workhorse vehicle in World War II, rolled off the assembly line at the American Motors plant in Toledo, Ohio.

1989: Playboy magazine hit newsstands with a photo spread of LaToya Jackson, nude with snakes.

1990: McDonald's opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow.

1992: Keith Witt of Amarillo cleaned three standard 42˝ by 47-inch office windows with an 11.8-inch squeegee in 10.13 seconds at the International Window Cleaning Association convention in San Antonio. That was a Guinness World Record.

1999: The Denver Broncos repeated as NFL champions, defeating the Atlanta Falcons 34-19 in Super Bowl 33.

2001: An 81-year-old resident of a Byker, England, nursing home and her 71-year-old friend wrestled a burglar into their bathroom and locked the door until police arrived. The 32-year-old heroin addict was charged with two counts of assault, drug possession, and burglary. The ladies were shaken up but not seriously hurt.

2005: Actor Keanu Reeves received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2005: Jury selection began in Santa Maria, California., for Michael Jackson's child molestation trial. He was acquitted.

2007: Stockholm police investigating reports of an odd smell from an apartment found 11 swans, and, apparently no humans, living there.  Police said the birds appeared to be well taken care of but, at last report, had not found the caretaker.

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