Flashback

Today is Saturday, July 29, the 210th day of 2006. There are 155 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history:

Twenty-five years ago, on July 29, 1981, Britain’s Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in a resplendent ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. (The couple divorced in 1996.)

On this date:

In 1588, the English soundly defeated the Spanish Armada in the Battle of Gravelines.

In 1856, 150 years ago, German composer Robert Schumann died in Bonn at age 46.

In 1890, artist Vincent van Gogh died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auvers, France.

In 1900, Italian King Humbert I was assassinated by an anarchist; he was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel III.

In 1914, transcontinental telephone service began with the first phone conversation between New York and San Francisco.

In 1948, Britain’s King George VI opened the Olympic Games in London.

In 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created NASA.

In 1967, fire swept the USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin, killing 134 servicemen.

In 1980, a state funeral was held in Cairo, Egypt, for the deposed Shah of Iran, who had died two days earlier at age 60.

In 1986, a federal jury in New York found that the National Football League had committed an antitrust violation against the rival United States Football League. But in a hollow victory for the USFL, the jury ordered the NFL to pay token damages of only $3.

Ten years ago: China detonated a nuclear test explosion that it promised would be its last, just hours before international negotiators in Geneva began discussing a global ban on such testing. At the Atlanta Olympics, Carl Lewis won the gold medal in the long jump, becoming only the fifth Olympian to win gold medals in four straight games. Michael Johnson won the 400-meter dash, Allen Johnson the 110-meter hurdles.

Five years ago: In a nonbinding referendum, residents of Vieques voted overwhelmingly for the U.S. Navy to immediately stop bombing on the Puerto Rican island. Lance Armstrong won his third straight Tour de France, becoming the first American to do so. Former Polish communist ruler Edward Gierek died at age 88.

One year ago: The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a U.S.-sponsored resolution expanding U.N. sanctions against al-Qaida terrorists and Afghanistan’s former Taliban rulers to affiliates and splinter groups. Cabaret singer Hildegarde, whose career spanned almost seven decades, died in New York at age 99.