Phạm Ngọc Thảo (1922–1965), a major provincial leader in South Vietnam and infiltrator of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), was a communist agent of the Vietminh and later the Vietnam People's Army. As the overseer of Ngo Dinh Nhu’s Strategic Hamlet Program in the early 1960s, he deliberately forced the program forward at unsustainable speeds, constructing poorly equipped and poorly defended villages, in order to foster rural resentment against the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem, Nhu's elder brother. Thao was posthumously promoted by the ARVN to the rank of one-star general and awarded the title of Heroic war dead (Vietnamese: Liệt sĩ). After the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, the communist government awarded him the same title and paid war pensions to his family, claiming him as one of their own. (more...)

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July 24: Pioneer Day in Utah (1847)

1910 – Ottoman forces captured the city of Shkodër to put down the Albanian Revolt of 1910.

1938 – A combined German–Austrian team became the first team to climb the north face of the Eiger, one of the six great north faces of the Alps.

1959 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon held an impromptu debate (pictured) at the opening of the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park in Moscow.

1980 – At the Moscow Olympics, Australia's Quietly Confident Quartet swimming team won the gold medal in the men's 4 x 100 metre medley relay, the only time that the United States, who were boycotting these games, has not won the event at Olympic level.

2009 – The MV Arctic Sea, reportedly carrying timber, was allegedly boarded by hijackers off the coast of Sweden, but much speculation remains as to the actual cargo and events.

More anniversaries: July 23 – July 24 – July 25

The Bassian Thrush (Zoothera lunulata) is a medium-sized mostly insectivorous thrush found predominantly in shrubland, forests, and rainforests of southeastern Australia and Tasmania. It grows to about 28 cm (11 in) in length and about 100 g (3.5 oz) in weight. Photo: JJ Harrison Recently featured: Fields Medal – Simulated depth of field – Johnny Evers Archive – More featured pictures...