Almanac

Today is Thursday, July 30, the 211th day of 2026 with 154 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mercury and Venus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Leo. They include writer Emily Bronte in 1818; auto pioneer Henry Ford in 1863; artist Henry Moore in 1898; former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig in 1934 (age 92); filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich in 1939; musician Paul Anka in 1941 (age 85); Arnold Schwarzenegger, former California governor/actor, in 1947 (age 79); actor William Atherton in 1947 (age 79); actor Jean Reno in 1948 (age 78); actor Delta Burke in 1956 (age 70); musician Kate Bush in 1958 (age 68); filmmaker Richard Linklater in 1960 (age 66); actor Laurence Fishburne in 1961 (age 65); TV chef Alton Brown in 1962 (age 64); actor Lisa Kudrow in 1963 (age 63); actor Vivica A. Fox in 1964 (age 62); actor Terry Crews in 1968 (age 58); actor Simon Baker in 1969 (age 57); filmmaker Christopher Nolan in 1970 (age 56); actor Tom Green in 1971 (age 55); actor Christine Taylor in 1971 (age 55); actor Hilary Swank in 1974 (age 52); Volleyball Hall of Fame member Misty May-Treanor in 1977 (age 49); actor Jaime Pressly in 1977 (age 49); actor April Bowlby in 1980 (age 46); musician Seth Avett (Avett Brothers) in 1980 (age 46); National Soccer Hall of Fame member Hope Solo in 1981 (age 44); actor Yvonne Strahovski in 1982 (age 44); actor Martin Starr in 1982 (age 44); actor Gina Rodriguez in 1984 (age 42); actor Austin North in 1996 (age 30); musician Finneas O'Connell in 1997 (age 29); actor Joey King in 1999 (age 27).

On this date in history:

In 1619, in Jamestown, Va., the first elected legislative assembly in the New World -- the House of Burgesses -- convened in the choir loft of the town's church.

In 1729, Baltimore, Md., was founded.

In 1930, Uruguay won the World Cup soccer tournament.

In 1932, Walt Disney released his first color cartoon, "Flowers and Trees," made in three-color Technicolor.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law.

In 1971,the lunar module Falcon of the Apollo 15 mission landed on the moon.

In 1974, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, by a vote of 21-17, approved a third article of impeachment against U.S. President Richard Nixon, charging him with ignoring congressional subpoenas. Nixon resigned -- just over a week later -- before he could be impeached.

In 1975, former Teamsters Union President Jimmy Hoffa was last seen outside a suburban Detroit restaurant. He was declared dead in 1982.

In 2009, Britain, Australia and Romania pulled their remaining forces from Iraq, leaving the United States and its almost 130,000 troops as the sole remnant of the 2003 multinational invading coalition.

In 2010, more than 1,500 people were reported dead after Pakistan was wracked by record rainfall and massive flooding. Officials said 4 million people had been displaced.

In 2013, a military judge found Pfc. Bradley Manning, who released hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. military and diplomatic documents to the WikiLeaks website, guilty of violating the Espionage Act and other offenses but acquitted him on a charge of aiding the enemy. Manning was later sentenced to 35 years in prison, with the possibility of parole in eight years, and officially changed his first name to Chelsea. President Barack Obama pardoned her in 2016, and she was released in 2017.

In 2020, NASA launched the most advanced Mars rover yet -- the Perseverance -- with technology and tools to find signs of life on the Red Planet.

In 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged hundreds of thousands of civilians remaining in eastern Ukraine to evacuate as the government planned to implement mandatory evacuations.

A thought for the day: "Acting is a childlike thing. To act well, you have to be childlike in order to free yourself." -- American actor Laurence Fishburne