Today is the 187th day of 2014 and the 16th day of summer.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1785, Congress chose the dollar as the monetary unit of the United States.

In 1854, the Republican Party was formally launched at a convention in Jackson, Mich.

In 1892, 16 people were killed during fighting between guards and striking steelworkers at a Carnegie Steel Co. plant in Homestead, Pa.

In 1942, diarist Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in a "secret annex" in a warehouse in Amsterdam.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), painter; Nancy Reagan (1921- ), actress/first lady; Merv Griffin (1925-2007), TV personality; Janet Leigh (1927-2004), actress; Ned Beatty (1937- ), actor; George W. Bush (1946- ), 43rd U.S. president; Sylvester Stallone (1946- ), actor; Geoffrey Rush (1951- ), actor; Brian Posehn (1966- ), actor/comedian; 50 Cent (1975- ), rapper; Kevin Hart (1979- ), actor/comedian; Pau Gasol (1980- ), basketball player.

TODAY'S FACT: Future Beatles bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time at a fair in Liverpool, England, on this date in 1957.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1957, Althea Gibson became the first African-American athlete to win a tennis title at Wimbledon.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "I believe any success in life is made by going into an area with a blind, furious optimism." -- Sylvester Stallone

TODAY'S NUMBER: 49,200 -- fans in attendance at Major League Baseball's first All-Star Game, held on this day in 1933 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The American League defeated the National League by a score of 4-2.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (July 5) and full moon (July 12).

Today is the 186th day of 2014 and the 15th day of summer.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1865, the Salvation Army was founded in London.

In 1935, the National Labor Relations Act was passed, guaranteeing workers the right to organize and bargain collectively.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon certified the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.

In 1996, Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, was born.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: P.T. Barnum (1810-1891), circus founder; John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), economist; Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), writer; Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (1902-1985), diplomat; Huey Lewis (1950- ), singer-songwriter; Bill Watterson (1958- ), cartoonist; Edie Falco (1963- ), actress; Adam Young (1986- ), singer-songwriter.

TODAY'S FACT: The bikini swimsuit, introduced by French fashion designer Louis Reard on this day in 1946, was named for the Bikini Atoll, where the United States had conducted a news-making atomic test earlier in the week.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 2009, Roger Federer won his world-record 15th Grand Slam tournament with a victory over Andy Roddick at Wimbledon.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has." -- P.T. Barnum

TODAY'S NUMBER: 5 billion -- cans of SPAM sold worldwide by the end of the 20th century. The canned meat product from Hormel Food Corp. was introduced on this day in 1937.

TODAY'S MOON: First quarter moon (July 5).

Today is the 185th day of 2014 and the 14th day of summer.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

In 1826, founding fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

In 1960, the modern version of the American flag (with 50 stars) debuted at a ceremony in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1997, NASA's Pathfinder space probe landed on Mars.

In 2012, the discovery of Higgs boson-like particles through experiments at the Large Hadron Collider was announced at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: George Everest (1790-1866), surveyor/geographer; Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), writer; Stephen Foster (1826-1864), songwriter; Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), 30th U.S. president; Leona Helmsley (1920-2007), real estate developer; Eva Marie Saint (1924- ), actress; Neil Simon (1927- ), playwright; Al Davis (1929-2011), Oakland Raiders owner; George Steinbrenner (1930-2010), New York Yankees owner; Geraldo Rivera (1943- ), TV personality.

TODAY'S FACT: Renowned advice columnists Eppie Lederer and Pauline Phillips, known as Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren ("Dear Abby") respectively, were twin sisters, born on this day in 1918.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1939, New York Yankee slugger Lou Gehrig, who was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, announced his retirement at Yankee Stadium. Gehrig delivered the famous line, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Words -- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

TODAY'S NUMBER: 1,000 -- approximate number of American Sign Language signs in the working vocabulary of Koko, a female lowland gorilla born on this day in 1971.

TODAY'S MOON: Between new moon (June 27) and first quarter moon (July 5).