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20131776 Club

Kevyn Orr files Chapter 9; Detroit lists debts of up to $20 billion

The city of 700,000 becomes the largest by population ever to seek bankruptcy protection, its revenue down more than 20 percent since 2008.

By July 2013, Detroit's population had fallen to 700,000, down from 1.8 million in 1950, and its revenue had dropped more than 20 percent since 2008. Emergency Financial Manager Kevyn Orr, appointed that March after the state declared a financial emergency, filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy on July 18, 2013, listing debts estimated between 18 and 20 billion dollars. It was the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history, and the largest city by population ever to file. Mayor Dave Bing offered little comfort: the people of Detroit, he said, would have to make the best of it…

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More from July 18
1966

Young and Collins ride Agena's engine to 412 nautical miles; no human has flown higher

Gemini 10 docks with its target vehicle hours after liftoff from Cape Kennedy, with Collins set to walk outside and retrieve hardware from a second Agena still drifting in orbit.
1863

Shaw is killed at the parapet; the 54th Massachusetts storms Fort Wagner

One of the first Black regiments in the Union Army leads the beach assault on Charleston harbor's fort, suffering heavy losses but silencing doubts about whether these soldiers will fight.
1914

Congress creates an aviation section inside the Signal Corps; $250,000 to get it started

Public Law 143 gives the Army's handful of planes a formal home, but keeps aviation folded inside the Signal Corps rather than making it a branch of its own.
19681776 Club
Backed by Arthur Rock and registered today as NM Electronics, the new venture already has a third man: chemical engineer Andy Grove, employee number three.
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More from Modern America
2013

Cassini turns its camera toward Earth; Saturn's shadow makes it possible

Imaging leader Carolyn Porco positioned the spacecraft to catch the sun eclipsed by Saturn, putting Earth in the frame 1.44 billion kilometers away, and millions look up and wave.
1997

Old Ironsides sails again; Cronkite takes the helm off Marblehead

The 1797 frigate moves under her own canvas for the first time in 116 years, on sails paid for through a national campaign of citizen and student donations.
1999

Collins becomes first woman to command a shuttle; Columbia loses an engine on the way up

A loose pin ruptures coolant tubes during ascent, but Columbia still reaches orbit to release the heaviest payload NASA had ever flown.
1998

Clinton tells grand jury of "improper" ties to Lewinsky, then tells the country he misled them

Seven months after denying it on camera, the president reverses himself twice in one day.
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