Cliff Thorburn in 2007

The 1980 World Snooker Championship was a ranking professional snooker tournament played from 22 April to 5 May 1980 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. The total prize fund was £60,000, of which £15,000 went to the winner. There were 53 entrants to the competition, and the main stage featured 24 players: the 16 top-ranked players and 8 qualifiers. The defending champion Terry Griffiths lost in his first match, to Steve Davis. Cliff Thorburn (pictured) won the final 18–16 against Alex Higgins, the champion in 1972. Both Kirk Stevens and Steve Davis made breaks of 136, the highest of 11 century breaks compiled during the main championship. The tournament was sponsored by the cigarette manufacturer Embassy, and received 70 hours of television coverage by the BBC in the United Kingdom. Coverage of the final was interrupted by a live broadcast of the Iranian Embassy siege, which caused numerous complaints to the broadcaster. The end of the final attracted 14.5 million viewers. (Full article...)

Yekaterina Nosenko

• ... that Igor Stravinsky said of his cousin and first wife, Yekaterina Nosenko (pictured), that they were "closer than lovers sometimes are"?
• ... that in the 1930s two hoards of gold coins were found in a cellar in Baltimore, Maryland?
• ... that Fanya Baron resisted her prison guards and had to be carried to the place of her execution?
• ... that the creators of Misfits and Magic said that they sympathize with those who choose not to watch it?
• ... that after the death of surgeon and philanthropist John Hitchman the townspeople of Leamington Spa, England, erected a fountain in his memory?
• ... that Chicago's Kasama is the world's first Filipino restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star?
• ... that before becoming the first woman president of the American College of Sports Medicine, Barbara L. Drinkwater had an undefeated season as a women's college basketball coach?
• ... that by 1967, staff at the Home Office were told not to feed Peta morsels of food as she had become "inordinately fat"?

Chris Woakes

• In Sindh, Pakistan, the derailment of a Hazara Express train kills 30 people.
• In cricket, the Ashes concludes with Australia retaining the trophy, drawing the series against England (Compton–Miller Medal recipient Chris Woakes pictured).
• In cycling, Demi Vollering wins the Tour de France Femmes.
• IS–KP kill more than 50 people in a suicide bombing at a political rally in Khar, Pakistan.

August 7: Assyrian Martyrs Day (1933)

Badge of Military Merit

• 1461 – Ming Chinese general Cao Qin staged a failed coup against the Tianshun Emperor.
• 1782 – The Badge of Military Merit (pictured), the precursor to the U.S. Purple Heart, was established as a military decoration of the Continental Army.
• 1897 – Mahdist War: Anglo-Egyptian soldiers clashed with Mahdist Sudanese rebels in the Battle of Abu Hamed.
• 1955 – Hurricane Diane, the first Atlantic hurricane to cause more than $1 billion in damages, formed between the Lesser Antilles and Cape Verde.
• 1987 – Lynne Cox became the first person to swim between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, crossing from Little Diomede to Big Diomede in the Bering Strait in 2 hours and 5 minutes.