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The 1966 FIFA World Cup, the eighth staging of the World Cup was held in England from July 11 to July 30, 1966. England was chosen as hosts by FIFA in August 1960 to celebrate the centenary of the codification of football in the country. England won the final, beating West Germany 4-2, giving them their first (and only to this date) World Cup win, becoming the first host to win the tournament since Italy in 1934.

There was a record number of entries for the qualifying tournament, with 70 nations taking part. The format of the competition featured 16 qualified teams divided into four groups of four. The two top teams in each group advanced to the quarter-final. Despite achieving record attendances for the time, 1966 was a World Cup with few goals as the teams began to play more tactically and defensively.

For example, England finished top of Group 1 with only four goals to their credit, but having none scored against them. London’s Wembley Stadium provided the venue for the final and 98,000 people attended. The score was level at 2-2 at the end of 90 minutes and the game went into extra time. Geoff Hurst scored twice for England, becoming the only player to have scored three times in a World Cup final.

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15 Eunomia is a very large asteroid in the inner main asteroid belt. It is the largest of the stony asteroids, and somewhere between the 8^th to the 12^th largest Main Belt asteroid overall. It is also the largest member of the Eunomia family of asteroids.

Eunomia was discovered by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis on July 29, 1851, and named after one of the Horae, a personification of order and law in Greek mythology. As the largest S-type asteroid, Eunomia has attracted a moderate amount of scientific attention. It contains slightly over one percent of the mass of the entire main belt. Eunomia appears to be an elongated but fairly regularly shaped body, with what appears to be four sides of differing curvature.

Its surface is composed of silicates and some nickel-iron and is quite bright. Its composition indicates that the parent body was likely subject to magmatic processes, and became at least partially differentiated under the influence of internal heating in the early period of the Solar System. The largest remaining fragment should have about 70% of the mass of the parent body.

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National Lampoon’s Animal House is a 1978 comedy film directed by John Landis and adapted by Douglas Kenney, Christopher Miller and Harold Ramis from stories written by Miller and published in National Lampoon magazine based on his experiences in the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at Dartmouth College. It is about a misfit group of fraternity boys who take on the system at their college.

The film is considered to be the movie that launched the gross-out genre. It was produced on a small budget of $2.7 million and has turned out to be one of the most profitable films of all time. Since its initial release, Animal House has garnered an estimated return of more than $141 million in the form of video and DVDs not including merchandising.

The initial cast was to feature Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi but only Belushi wanted to do it. He received only $35,000 for the film with a bonus after it became a hit. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed Animal House “culturally significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

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A Wild Hare is a Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short film directed by Tex Avery and written by Rich Hogan. It was originally released on July 27, 1940. A Wild Hare is considered by many film historians as the first “official” Bugs Bunny cartoon. The title is a play on “wild hair,” the first of many puns between “hare” and “hair” that would appear in Bugs Bunny titles.

The pun is carried further by a bar of “I’m Just Wild About Harry” playing in the underscore of the opening credits. A Wild Hare is noteworthy as the first true Bugs Bunny cartoon, as well as for settling on the classic voice by Mel Blanc and appearance of the hunter, Elmer Fudd. Although, the animators continued to experiment with Elmer’s design for a few more years, his look here proved to be the basis for his finalized design.

The design and character of Bugs Bunny would continue to be refined over the subsequent years, but the general appearance, voice and personality of the character were established in this cartoon. The rabbit is unnamed in this film, but would be christened “Bugs Bunny” in his very next short, Elmer’s Pet Rabbit, directed by Chuck Jones.

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Stanley Kubrick was an influential American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He directed a number of high acclaimed and sometimes controversial films. Kubrick is noted for the scrupulous care with which he chose his subjects, his slow method of working, the variety of genres in his movies, and his shunning of publicity.

Kubrick was born in Manhattan and was a poor student. He was interested in photography at an early age and worked as a freelance photographer for Look magazine after graduating from high school. He got his start as a filmmaker by making several short documentaries before moving on to feature films with Fear and Desire in 1953. In 1956, he made his first critically successful film, The Killing, a film noir starring Sterling Hayden.

Kubrick made his first of several war films in 1957 with Paths of Glory before working as a director-for-hire on Spartacus (1960) as a favor to actor Kirk Douglas whom he had worked with on Paths of Glory. Kubrick first courted controversy with his adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s risqué novel Lolita in 1962, and went on to direct the critically acclaimed and highly influential Cold War satire, Dr. Strangelove. He went on to make several landmark films in the science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey), historical drama (Barry Lyndon), horror (The Shining), and thriller (Eyes Wide Shut) genres before dying in 1999 of a heart attack in his sleep.

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Operation Crossroads was a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States in the summer of 1946. The series consisted of two detonations, each with a yield of 21 kilotons: Baker was detonated 90 feet underwater on July 25, 1946. The series was to study the effects of nuclear weapons on ships, equipment, and material.

A fleet of more than 90 vessels was assembled in Bikini Lagoon as a target. Baker was the second test and sank eight ships and damaged more of them than the first test. The detonation caused most of the target fleet to be bathed in radioactive water spray and radioactive debris from the lagoon bottom. With the exception of 12 target vessels anchored in the array and the landing craft beached on Bikini Island, the target fleet remained too radiologically contaminated for several weeks for more than brief on-board activities.

This test threatened the success of the operation after Baker. A formal resurvey of Bikini Atoll was conducted in the summer of 1947 to study long-term effects of the Crossroads tests.

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George Brett is a former Major League Baseball player for the Kansas City Royals. A third baseman, he is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Brett had injuries on-and-off between 1981 and 1984, during which occurred the most notable event in his career, the notorious “Pine Tar Incident” that took place in an American League game played between the Kansas City Royals and New York Yankees on July 24, 1983.

The Royal were trailing 4-3 with two outs in the top of the ninth and U.L. Washington on first base. Brett connected off Yankee reliever Rich “Goose” Gossage for a two-run home run and a 5-4 lead. As Brett crossed the plate, New York manager Billy Martin approached the home plate umpire and requested that Brett’s bat be examined.

The umpire crew inspected the bat and determined that the amount of pine tar on the bat’s handle exceeded the allowed rule. The umpire signaled that Brett’s home run was nullified and the game over. An enraged Brett stormed out of the dugout to confront the umpire and had to be physically restrained by the Kansas City manager and his teammates. The Royals protested the game and their protest was upheld. The game was finished at a later date which the Royals held on to win.

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El Al is Israel’s largest airline and flag carrier. It operates regular international passenger and cargo flights between its hub at Ben Gurion International Airport and destinations in Africa, Asia, and North America. Since its inaugural flight from Geneva to Tel Aviv in September 1948, the airline has grown to serve 48 destinations on four continents.

As the former national carrier of Israel, El Al has played an important role in the country’s humanitarian rescue efforts, airlifting Jews from Ethiopia, Yemen, and other countries where their lives were at risk. The airline is widely acknowledged as the world’s most secure airline, after foiling many attempted hijackings and terror attacks through its security protocols.

On July 23, 1968, the first and only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft took place when a 707 carrying 10 crew and 38 passengers was taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The aircraft was en route from Rome to Lod and the hijackers diverted it to Algiers. Bargaining with the hijackers went on for 40 days. Both the hijackers and the passengers, including 21 Israeli hostages, were eventually freed.

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John Dillinger was a notorious bank robber in mid-western America. Some considered him a dangerous criminal, while others idolized him as a present-day Robin Hood. His exploits, along with those of other criminals of the 1930s Depression era, dominated the attention of the American press and its readers during what is sometimes referred to as the public enemy era (1931-1935).

Dillinger was believed to have been associated with gangs who robbed dozens of banks of a total of more than $300,000, an enormous sum in the Depression era. He escaped from prison twice and eventually dropped out of sight by the summer of 1934. He had adopted an alias and worked as a clerk in Chicago.

On July 22, 1934, Dillinger attended the film Manhattan Melodrama at the Biograph Theater in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. He was with his girlfriend Polly Hamilton and Anna Sage, an illegal immigrant who sold the FBI information about Dillinger for money and so that she would not be deported. After the film, Sage tipped off agents who opened fire on Dillinger as he ran. He was struck three times and died without saying a word.

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The Apollo 11 mission was the first manned mission to land on the moon. It was the fifth human spaceflight of Project Apollo and the third human voyage to the Moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, it carried Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command  Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin.

On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon, while Collins orbited above. On July 21, Armstrong made his descent to the Moon’s surface and spoke his famous line, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” exactly six and half hours after landing. Aldrin joined him, describing the view as “magnificent desolation.”

For two and half hours, they took notes, photographed what they saw, and drilled core samples. They planned placement of Early Apollo  Scientific Experiment package and the U.S. flag by studying their landing site through Eagle’s twin triangular windows. The first landing used Slow-scan TV incompatible with commercial TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor. This footage was received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth.

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