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the first officer to hold the rank.
• In 1898, the United States invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War.
• In 1909, French aviator Louis Bleriot (bleh-ree-OH') became the first person to fly an airplane across the English Channel, traveling from Calais (kah-LAY') to Dover in 37 minutes.
• In 1943, Benito Mussolini was dismissed as premier of Italy by King Victor Emmanuel III and placed under arrest. However, Mussolini was later rescued by the Nazis and re-asserted his authority.
• In 1946, the United States detonated an atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the first underwater test of the device.
• In 1952, Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.
• In 1956, the Italian liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm off the New England coast late at night and began sinking; at least 51 people were killed.
• In 1960, a Woolworth's store in Greensboro, N.C., that had been the scene of a sit-in protest against its whites-only lunch counter dropped its segregation policy.
• In 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the first "test tube baby," was born in Oldham, England; she'd been conceived through the technique of in-vitro fertilization.
• In 1984, Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya (sah-VEETS'-kah-yah) became the first woman to walk in space as she carried out more than three hours of experiments outside the orbiting space station Salyut 7.
• In 1992, opening ceremonies were held in Barcelona, Spain, for the Summer Olympics.
• In 2000, a New York-bound Air France Concorde crashed outside Paris shortly after takeoff, killing all 109 people on board and four people on the ground; it was the first-ever crash of the supersonic jet.
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• Ten years ago: President George W. Bush ordered U.S. troops into position off the coast of Liberia to support the arrival of a West African peacekeeping force, as renewed violence in the capital brought despairing pleas for American help. President Bush received Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (mahk-MOOD' ah-BAHS') at the White House. Movie director John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy") died in Palm Springs, Calif., at age 77.
• Five years ago: An oxygen tank exploded aboard a Qantas Boeing 747-400, ripping a hole in the fuselage and forcing an emergency landing in the Philippines. President George W. Bush signed an executive order expanding sanctions against

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