Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 July 8

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George Romney (July 8, 1907 – July 26, 1995) was an American businessman and Republican Party politician, and the father of Mitt Romney. George Romney was born to Americans living in the Mormon colonies in Mexico. He spent much of his youth in Salt Lake City, but moved to Detroit in 1939, working in the automotive industry, and rising to lead American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962. Entering politics at a 1961 Michigan state constitutional convention, he was elected governor in 1962, 1964, and 1966. He ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1968, but was defeated by Richard Nixon. President Nixon appointed Romney as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Romney's plans, which included housing for the poor and the desegregation of suburbs, were modestly successful. He left office in 1973, returning to the private sector. Devoutly religious, he presided over the Detroit Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving as a regional representative of the Twelve within his church. (Full article...)

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1663 – Charles II of England granted Baptist minister John Clarke the Rhode Island Royal Charter, described by one historian as "the grandest instrument of human liberty ever constructed".
1709 – Great Northern War: Swedish forces under Charles XII were defeated by Russian troops led by Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava, effectively ending Sweden's role as a major European power.
1947 – Following reports of the capture of a "flying disc" by U.S. Army Air Force personnel near Roswell, New Mexico, the military said that the crashed object was a conventional weather balloon.
1994 – Upon the death of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il (pictured) became the supreme leader of North Korea.

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William Windom (1827–1891) was an American politician from Minnesota. He served as a Republican in the United States House of Representatives from 1859 to 1869, and in the United States Senate for three periods between 1870 and 1883. He also served twice as Secretary of the Treasury under three presidents. This line engraving of Windom was produced around 1902 by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 42 secretaries of the treasury.

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