Today in History: July 19, plane crashes during emergency landing, kills 111

On July 19, 2026, a Today in History entry highlighted aviation tragedy and other major events. The focus was the 1989 disaster involving United Airlines Flight 232, a DC-10 that suffered a tail engine failure and lost hydraulic systems before crashing during an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa. The crash killed 111 people, while 185 survived. The same date also marked historical milestones including the 1812 First Battle of Sackets Harbor in Lake Ontario, which ended in an American victory. In 1969, Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins went into lunar orbit, and in 1975 the Apollo and Soyuz capsules separated after linking for two days. Other entries included political and sports moments across multiple decades, from baseball’s Pete Rose receiving a five-month sentence in 1990 to the 2018 Branson duckboat accident that killed 17.