CAMILLE BOHANNON

Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison is a Northern Irish
singer-songwriter and musician whose recording
career started in the 1960s. He is 80 today.

             
               ED DANAHUE            

ED DANAHUE

On July 23, 1885, just after completing his memoirs, Civil War
hero and former president Ulysses S. Grant died of throat
cancer.

The successes of Grant’s tenure while in office (March 4, 1869 
– March 4, 1877) included passage of the Enforcement Act in
1870, which temporarily curtailed the political influence of the
Ku Klux Klan in the post-Civil War South, and the 1875 Civil
Rights Act, which attempted to desegregate public places
such as restrooms, “inns, public conveyances on land or
water, theaters, and other places of public amusement.”

 
CAMILLE BOHANNON

June 21, 1788: New Hampshire becomes the ninth and last
necessary state to ratify the Constitution of the United States,
thereby making the document the law of the land.

This date marked the end of government under the Articles
of Confederation and the beginning of the new government
established by the Constitution.

On September 14, 1982, Princess Grace of Monaco—the
American-born former film star Grace Kelly, whose movie
credits include The Country Girl and Rear Window—dies
at the age of 52 from injuries suffered after her car plunged
off a mountain road near Monte Carlo.