Today is Thursday, July 14, the 196th day of 2016. There are 170 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On July 14, 1966, the city of Chicago awoke to the shocking news that eight student nurses had been brutally slain during the night in a South Side dormitory. The victims, ranging in age from 20 to 24, were Pamela Wilkening; Suzanne Farris; Mary Ann Jordan; Nina Jo Schmale; Valentina Pasion; Merlita Gargullo; Patricia Matusek; and Gloria Jean Davy. (One woman, Corazon Amurao, survived by hiding under a bed.) Drifter Richard Speck was convicted of the mass killing and condemned to death, but had his sentence reduced to life in prison, where he died in 1991.

On this date

In 1789, in an event symbolizing the start of the French Revolution, citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside.

In 1865, the Matterhorn, straddling Italy and Switzerland, was summited as a seven- member rope party led by British climber Edward Whymper reached the peak. ( Four members of the party fell to their deaths during their descent; Whymper and two guides survived.)

In 1881, outlaw William H. Bonney Jr., alias “Billy the Kid,” was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner in present day New Mexico.

In 1913, Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr., the 38th president of the United States, was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1921, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were convicted in Dedham, Massachusetts, of murdering a shoe company paymaster and his guard. ( Sacco and Vanzetti were executed six years later.)

In 1933, all German political parties, except the Nazi Party, were outlawed. Cartoon character Popeye the Sailor made his movie debut in the Fleischer Studios animated short, “Popeye the Sailor.”

In 1945, Italy formally declared war on Japan, its former Axis partner during World War II.

In 1958, the army of Iraq overthrew the monarchy.

In 1965, the American space probe Mariner 4 flew by Mars, sending back photographs of the red planet. United Nations Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson II died in London at age 65.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in New York.

In 1980, the Republican national convention opened in Detroit, where nominee-apparent Ronald Reagan told a welcoming rally he and his supporters were determined to “make America great again.”

In 1999, race-based school busing in Boston came to an end after 25 years.

The Associated Press