Good morning. It's July 31st — let's begin where we always do: on this very date in history.
📅 On This Day — July 31
🥑 (It's also National Avocado Day.)
1964 — NASA's Ranger 7 sent back the first close-up photographs of the Moon before crashing into it as designed — 4,300 images in the final minutes.
1981 — The seven-week Major League Baseball players' strike was settled; play would resume August 9 with the All-Star Game.
1991 — In Moscow, Presidents Bush and Gorbachev signed START I, the treaty to slash their nuclear arsenals.
2006 — An ailing Fidel Castro temporarily handed power to his brother Raúl — the first crack in a 47-year grip.
2012 — At the London Games, Michael Phelps won his 19th medal to become the most decorated Olympian in history.
Now, let's set the dial all the way back to 1955…
⏪ REWIND: 1955 Eisenhower is president, a first-class stamp is 3 cents, gas is about 23 cents a gallon — and a brand-new sound is coming out of every jukebox.
📰 The Headlines The Geneva Summit just wrapped (July 18–23) — Eisenhower, Britain's Eden, France's Faure and the Soviets' Bulganin held the first Big Four meeting of the Cold War. Ike's surprise "Open Skies" proposal, offering mutual aerial inspection, is the talk of the world, even if it went home unsigned.
🎬 At the Movies Just out this month: Mister Roberts, the WWII Navy comedy-drama with Henry Fonda reprising his stage role alongside James Cagney, William Powell — and a scene-stealing young Jack Lemmon, who'll win the Supporting Actor Oscar for it.
🎵 On the Charts At #1 — and rewriting what a #1 sounds like — is "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets, the first rock 'n' roll record ever to top the chart, in the middle of an eight-week run.
🏆 In Sports The Brooklyn Dodgers are running away with the National League — 71–32 and up 13½ games by month's end. "Wait till next year" is about to become this year: in October they'll finally beat the Yankees for Brooklyn's one and only World Series title.
🏰 The Disney Vault Two weeks ago, in an Anaheim orange grove, Disneyland opened (July 17). The chaotic "Black Sunday" debut — counterfeit tickets, 100° heat, wet cement, a plumbers' strike that forced Walt to choose between working drinking fountains and working restrooms — has already given way to lines out the gate.
— a couple of quick things before you go —
👟 Step Challenge: the Summer 2026 Step Challenge is rolling — grab the free Pacer app and walk with us: Join the challenge (already have Pacer? Club code E42727228). Every step counts.
💡 Health Snap: the easiest wellness upgrade is a full glass of water first thing, before coffee — you wake up mildly dehydrated and it resets the whole morning. Want more straightforward wellness reading? The free report is at ourfreehealthreport.com.
🎉 Born on a July 31st — or know someone who was?
Forward this to them right now — there's no better "this is the day you were born" gift than a little time travel.
🎂 In good company: July 31 babies include novelist J.K. Rowling (1965), Wesley Snipes (1962), entrepreneur Mark Cuban (1958), tennis great Evonne Goolagong Cawley (1951), and economist Milton Friedman (1912).
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