Today is the 198th day of 2012 and the 27th day of summer.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1790, President George Washington signed legislation designating the District of Columbia as the permanent capital of the United States.

In 1918, abdicated czar Nicholas II and his family were executed at Yekaterinburg, Russia.

In 1951, J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" was published.

In 1979, Saddam Hussein became the president of Iraq.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530), painter; Roald Amundsen (1872-1928), explorer; Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990), actress; Ginger Rogers (1911-1995), dancer/actress; Tony Kushner (1956- ), playwright; Will Ferrell (1967- ), actor; Barry Sanders (1968- ), football player.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1932, Babe Didrikson singlehandedly won the Amateur Athletic Union's national women's team championship as the sole representative of Employers Casualty Co. of Dallas. She competed in eight of the 10 track and field events and set four world records over the course of the competition.

TODAY'S FACT: The world's first parking meter, installed on this day in 1935 in Oklahoma City, charged 5 cents per hour.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "When two people love each other, they don't look at each other; they look in the same direction." -- Ginger Rogers

TODAY'S NUMBER: 2 -- cities in which the U.S. Senate met formally before settling permanently in Washington, D.C., in 1800. The Senate convened in New York City from 1789 to 1790 and in Philadelphia from 1790 to 1800.

TODAY'S MOON: Between last quarter moon (July 10) and new moon (July 19).

Today is the 197th day of 2012 and the 26th day of summer.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1916, William Boeing incorporated Pacific Aero Products, later named the Boeing Co.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon announced his intent to visit China in search of a "normalization of relations."

In 2002, U.S. citizen John Walker Lindh pleaded guilty to having fought as a soldier with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), painter; Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863), author/poet; St. Francesca Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917), founder of charitable religious order; Linda Ronstadt (1946- ), singer/songwriter; Arianna Huffington (1950- ), Internet publisher; Jesse Ventura (1951- ), wrestler/former governor; Terry O'Quinn (1952- ), actor; Forest Whitaker (1961- ), actor.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 2007, the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team became the first professional sports franchise to record its 10,000th loss.

TODAY'S FACT: Clement Clarke Moore named his most famous poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas," but it is widely known by its first line, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas."

TODAY'S QUOTE: "What we have done is broken the ice. Now we have to test the water to see how deep it is." -- Richard Nixon

TODAY'S NUMBER: 171 -- total length (in miles) of wires found in one Boeing 747-400.

TODAY'S MOON: Between last quarter moon (July 10) and new moon (July 19).

Today is the 196th day of 2012 and the 25th day of summer.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1789, the French Revolution began with the storming of the Bastille in Paris.

In 1951, the George Washington Carver National Monument in Joplin, Mo., was dedicated, becoming the first U.S. national monument to honor an African-American.

In 2004, the U.S. Senate voted 50-48 against a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), painter; Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), painter; Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), musician; Gerald Ford (1913-2006), 38th U.S. president; Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007), screenwriter/director; Harry Dean Stanton (1926- ), actor; Jane Lynch (1960- ), actress; Brian Selznick (1966- ), writer/illustrator; Tim Hudson (1975- ), baseball player.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1999, the Western Conference defeated the Eastern Conference 79-61 to win the first WNBA All-Star Game.

TODAY'S FACT: The French revolutionaries were called sans-culottes, or "without breeches," which referred to their preference for wearing long trousers rather than the breeches of the aristocracy.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew." -- Woody Guthrie

TODAY'S NUMBER: $192.7 million -- total price fetched for four paintings by Gustav Klimt at a Christie's auction in 2006.

TODAY'S MOON: Between last quarter moon (July 10) and new moon (July 19).