On July 15, 2006, the San Francisco-based podcasting company
Odeo officially released Twttr—later changed to Twitter—its short messaging service (SMS) for groups, to the public.

Born as a side project apart from Odeo’s main podcasting platform,
the free application allowed users to share short status updates
with groups of friends by sending one text message to a single
number (“40404”).

Internet entrepreneur/Twitter co-founder
Evan Clark Williams (53).

On July 14th, 1946, at the dawn of the post-World War II baby
boom, Dr. Benjamin Spock published The Common Sense
Book of Baby and Child Care. It would become a foundational
work on the topic of parenting, transforming how generations
of children were raised.

The book, which has sold more than 50 million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages, stands as one of the
best-selling nonfiction works of the 20th century.

Dr. Benjamin McLane Spock
(May 2, 1903–March 15, 1998)

In the decades after publishing what would become
a worldwide childcare bible, Benjamin Spock gained
renown for his political activism.

He became a prominent opponent of the Vietnam War,
the military draft and nuclear weapons; in 1968, he was
convicted for aiding draft resisters. In 1972, he ran—
and lost—as the People’s Party’s presidential candidate.

In Los Angeles, California, Senator John F. Kennedy of
Massachusetts was nominated for the presidency by the
Democratic Party Convention, defeating Senator Lyndon
B. Johnson of Texas. The next day, Johnson was named
Kennedy’s running mate by a unanimous vote of the
convention.

Four months later, on November 8, JFK won 49.7 percent
of the popular vote in one of the closest presidential
elections in U.S. history, surpassing by a fraction the
49.6 percent received by Vice President Richard M.
Nixon, a Republican.

John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.

On July 13, 1990, the romantic-thriller Ghost, starring Demi
Moore, Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg, opened in
theaters across the country.

 
CAMILLE BOHANNON

GEORGE EASTMAN (1854 – 1932)

Founder of the Eastman Kodak Company,
whose invention of roll film popularized
amateur photography for the masses.