On July 23, 1829, William Burt of Mt. Vernon, Mich., received a patent for his Typographer, a forerunner of the typewriter.
In 1904 the ice cream cone was invented by Charles Menches during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.
In 1914 Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist. (The dispute touched off World War I.)
In 1945 Marshal Philippe Petain, who headed the Vichy government during World War II, was put on trial on charges of betraying France.
In 1958 Queen Elizabeth named the first four women to peerage, entitling them to sit in the House of Lords.
In 1962 a Telstar communications satellite relayed the first live television programs from the U.S. to Europe, including part of a Cubs game from Chicago.
In 1973 President Richard Nixon refused to release his Watergate tapes, and both the Senate Watergate Committee and special prosecutor Archibald Cox served subpoenas to obtain the material.
In 1979 the U.S. sent the 7th Fleet to rescue Vietnamese boat people adrift off Indochina.
In 1982 more than 300 people died in Nagasaki in Japan’s worst flood in 25 years.
In 1984 17 people were killed and at least 22 were injured in explosions and a fire at the Union Oil Co. refinery in southwest suburban Romeoville.
In 1985 Li Xiannian, the first Chinese president to visit the U.S., was received at the White House.
In 1986 Britain’s Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson in Westminster Abbey in London. (The couple, who hold the titles of Duke and Duchess of York, separated in March 1992.)
In 1991 Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer died in Miami at 87.
