Flashback

Today is Saturday, July 23, the 204th day of 2005. There are 161 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history:

On July 23, 1886, New York saloonkeeper Steve Brodie claimed to have made a daredevil plunge from the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River.

Ten years ago: In a new get-tough approach, the United Nations ordered the first combat unit from its rapid reaction force to Sarajevo to take out any rebel Serb guns that fired at U.N. peacekeepers.

Five years ago: President Clinton rejoined the troubled Middle East talks at Camp David after hurrying back from a four-day trip to Asia. Leaders of the major industrial countries concluded their summit in Japan by announcing a campaign to slash the number of deaths worldwide from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Lance Armstrong clinched his second-straight victory in the Tour de France. Tiger Woods, at 24, became the youngest player to win the career Grand Slam with a record-breaking performance in the British Open. Karrie Webb, 25, won the U.S. Women’s Open.

One year ago: Militants in Iraq took an Egyptian diplomat hostage, demanding his country abandon any plans it had to send security experts to Iraq. The Pentagon released newly discovered payroll records from President Bush’s 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard, though the records shed no new light on the future president’s activities during that summer. Joe Cahill, a founding father of the modern Irish Republican Army, died in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at age 84.

On this date:

In 1885, Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, died in Mount McGregor, N.Y., at age 63.

In 1892, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was born.

In 1904, by some accounts, the ice cream cone was invented by Charles E. Menches during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.

In 1914, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia following the killing of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serb assassin; the dispute led to World War I.

In 1945, French Marshal Henri Petain who had headed the Vichy government during World War II, went on trial, charged with treason. (He was condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted.)

In 1951, Henri Petain died in prison.

In 1952, Egyptian military officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew King Farouk I.

In 1967, rioting that claimed some 43 lives erupted in Detroit.

In 1977, a jury in Washington, D.C., convicted 12 Hanafi Muslims of charges stemming from the hostage siege at three buildings the previous March.

In 1985, bandleader Kay Kyser, known for his Kollege of Musical Knowledge, died in Chapel Hill, N.C., at age 79.