Text size:

THIS DATE IN HISTORY

July 24, 2008

1858: Republican senatorial candidate Abraham Lincoln formally challenged Democrat Stephen A. Douglas to a series of political debates; the result was seven face-to-face encounters.

1937: The state of Alabama dropped charges against four of the nine young black men accused of raping two white women in the "Scottsboro Case."

1959: during a visit to Moscow, Vice President Richard M. Nixon engaged in his famous "Kitchen Debate" with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

1974: The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Nixon had to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor.

1998: A gunman burst into the U.S. Capitol, opening fire and killing two police officers before being shot and captured. (The accused shooter, Russell Eugene Weston Jr., is being held in a federal mental facility.)

2003: The House and Senate intelligence committees issued their final report on the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, citing countless blunders, oversights and miscalculations that prevented authorities from stopping the attackers.