Highlight: 1913, the highest recorded shade temperature was measured in Death Valley, Calif., at 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 degrees Celsius). (Previously, the highest recorded shade temperature in the world, 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit, 58 Celsius, was said to have occurred in 1922 in present-day Libya, but the accuracy of that reading was disputed in 2012 by the World Meteorological Organization.)

In 1509, theologian John Calvin, a key figure of the Protestant Reformation, was born in Noyon, Picardy, France.

In 1890, Wyoming became the 44th state.

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson personally delivered the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate, and urged its ratification. (However, the Senate rejected it.)

In 1925, jury selection took place in Dayton, Tenn., in the trial of John T. Scopes, charged with violating the law by teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. (Scopes was convicted and fined, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality.)

In 1940, during World War II, the Battle of Britain began as Nazi forces began attacking southern England by air. (The Royal Air Force was ultimately victorious.)

In 1951, armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean War began at Kaesong.

In 1962, AT&T’s Telstar 1 communications satellite, capable of relaying television signals and telephone calls, was launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral.

In 1973, John Paul Getty III, the teenage grandson of the oil tycoon, was abducted in Rome by kidnappers who cut off his ear when his family was slow to meet their ransom demands; young Getty was finally released in December 1973 in exchange for nearly $3 million.

In 1985, the Greenpeace protest ship Rainbow Warrior was sunk with explosives in Auckland, New Zealand, by French intelligence agents; one activist was killed. Bowing to pressure from irate customers, the Coca-Cola Co. said it would resume selling old-formula Coke, while continuing to sell New Coke.

In 1991, Boris Yeltsin took the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian republic. President George H.W. Bush lifted economic sanctions against South Africa.

Ten years ago: Astronomers announced they had found the oldest and most distant planet yet, a huge, gaseous sphere 13 billion years old and 5,600 light years away.

Five years ago: President George W. Bush signed a bill overhauling rules about government eavesdropping and granting immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the U.S. spy on Americans in suspected terrorism cases.

One year ago: Clashing over the economy, President Barack Obama challenged Mitt Romney to join him in allowing tax hikes for rich Americans like them; Romney dismissed the idea and redirected charges that he had sent jobs overseas when he worked in private equity, calling Obama the real “outsourcer-in-chief.”

— From wire reports

Former boxer Jake LaMotta is 92. Folk singer Arlo Guthrie is 66. Banjo player Bela Fleck is 55. Actor Adrian Grenier is 37. Singer-actress Jessica Simpson is 33.

It’s Wednesday, July 10, the 191st day of 2013. There are 174 days left in the year.