Today is Friday, July 8, the 190th day of 2016. There are 176 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On July 8, 1947, an object crashed onto a ranch in Roswell, New Mexico; a local newspaper, the Roswell Daily Record, reported that the nearby U.S. Army Air Field had recovered a “ flying saucer,” but officials said it was actually a weather balloon. To this day, however, there are those who believe what fell to Earth was an alien spaceship that carried extra-terrestrial beings.

On this date

In 1663, King Charles II of England granted a Royal Charter to Rhode Island.

In 1776, Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, outside the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.

In 1889, The Wall Street Journal was first published.

In 1891, Warren G. Harding married Florence Kling DeWolfe in Marion, Ohio.

In 1907, Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first “Follies,” on the roof of the New York Theater.

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson received a tumultuous welcome in New York City after his return from the Versailles Peace Conference in France.

In 1950, President Harry S. Truman named Gen. Douglas MacArthur commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea. (Truman ended up sacking MacArthur for insubordination nine months later.)

In 1965, Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 21, a Douglas DC-6B, crashed in British Columbia after the tail separated from the fuselage; all 52 people on board were killed in what authorities said was the result of an apparent bombing.

In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford announced he would seek a second term of office.

In 1986, Kurt Waldheim was inaugurated as president of Austria despite controversy over his alleged ties to Nazi war crimes. Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, widely regarded as father of the nuclear navy, died in Arlington, Virginia.

In 1994, Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s communist leader since 1948, died at age 82.

In 2000, Venus Williams beat Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 7-6 (3) for her first Grand Slam title, becoming the first black female champion at Wimbledon since Althea Gibson in 1957-58.

Ten years ago: Four more U.S. soldiers were charged with rape and murder and a fifth with dereliction of duty in the rape-slaying of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killings of her family in Mahmoudiya. (The soldiers received sentences ranging from five to 110 years based on their acknowledged roles in the attack.)

The Associated Press