On this day, July 10 …

1999: The U.S. women's soccer team wins the World Cup, beating China 5-4 on penalty kicks after 120 minutes of scoreless play at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

Also on this day:

  • 1509: Theologian John Calvin, a key figure of the Protestant Reformation, is born in Noyon, in the former administrative region of Picardy, France.
  • 1919: President Woodrow Wilson personally delivers the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate and urges its ratification. (However, the Senate rejects it.)
  • 1925: Jury selection takes place in Dayton, Tenn., in the trial of John T. Scopes, who is charged with violating the law by teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution. (Scopes would be convicted and fined, but the verdict is overturned on a technicality.)
  • 1973: The Bahamas becomes fully independent after three centuries of British colonial rule. 
  • 1973: John Paul Getty III, the teenage grandson of the oil tycoon, is abducted in Rome by kidnappers who cut off his ear when his family is slow to meet their ransom demand. (Getty would be released in December 1973 for nearly $3 million.)

AP file

  • 1985: Bowing to pressure from irate customers, the Coca-Cola Co. says it will resume selling old-formula Coke while continuing to sell New Coke.
  • 1991: Boris Yeltsin takes the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian republic.
  • 2002: The House approves, 310-113, a measure to allow airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit to defend their planes against terrorists. (President George W. Bush later signs the measure into law).
  • 2004: President George W. Bush says in his weekly radio address that legalizing gay marriage would redefine the most fundamental institution of civilization and that a constitutional amendment is needed to protect traditional marriage.
  • 2009: General Motors completes an unusually quick exit from bankruptcy protection with promises of making money and building cars people would be eager to buy.