Last week of July

The last week of July ( in non election years that is) can be a time that little happens as The Supreme Court has already recessed and Congress and the President have already left or will soon be leaving town. But here are some interesting events
July 26, 1775 Benjamin Franklin is named the first postmaster general by the First Continental Congress. In 1788 New York finally ratifies the Constitution the 11th state to do so. The FBI was founded in 1908 and Truman in 1947 finalized the creating of the CIA, National Security Council and the Department of Defense and then on the same date in 1949 issued an executive order ending segregation in the military.
July 27, 1953 the armistice ending the the Korean War was signed.
In 1932 July 28 Hoover order the "Bonus Army" to be evicted which was probably another nail in the coffin that led to his defeat in November.
July 30 going way back to 1609 the colonist in Jamestown form the American representative assembly and in 1956 "In God We Trust" became the official US motto

1969 It was a very good year?

There have been many watershed years throughout history and 1969 was certainly one of them. Even as a young teenager, I realized the happenings of that year would have great impact. To me the most exciting was landing on the moon. Being a Texan it was great that the first word from the moon was "Houston". But the other events of especially the summer of 1969 brought great change to our culture. It was the summer of Woodstock and the Manson Family murders.
Another happening was Senator Ted Kennedy's accident at Chappaquiddick. Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi coast killing 248 and causing over $1 billion in damage.
Richard Nixon was sworn in as our nation's 37th President and then shortly after that Warren Burger was confirmed to replace Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. 250,000 marched on Washington DC to protest the Vietnam War. The first draft since World War II was begun. The Chicago 8 trial began. Golda Meir became Prime Minister of Israel, Yasser Arafat first chairman of the P.L.O. ,Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France and finally a biggie M. Qauddafi led a bloodless coupe in Libya.
PBS was established and 1969 is the symbolic birthday of the internet (where was Al Gore?). The first ATM machine was installed. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married and The Beatles held their last public concert. At the movies two that had great cultural impact were Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy also the Stonewall Riots in NYC were considered the beginning of the modern gay rights movement.
Judge for yourself if 1969 was a good or bad year but you can see that technological, political and cultural events that occurred are still impacting our society today.