July 8, 1967: Monitor reporters set out in the streets of Concord to test a Harris poll’s findings that President Lyndon B. Johnson’s popularity is rising and that the Vietnam War will be a decisive factor in the 1968 presidential election. Interviews with 115 people in Concord turn up these results: 28.7 percent like Johnson more than they did in 1964, 58 percent like him less. Most of those who criticize Johnson cite his handling of the war as the main reason for their discontent.
July 9, 1995: At the dedication of the restored barn of Robert Frost in Franconia, Donald Hall shares his thoughts on Frost’s poetry. He says he once believed Frost wrote 25 great poems, but the number has risen to 75. “Every time I look,” Hall says, “he’s written another good one.”
July 9, 1992: Bob Tewksbury of Concord is named to the National League All- Star team.
July 10, 1927: A U.S. Army flying school opens at Concord airport with the arrival of the first class of 20 pilots in training. With the opening of the school, the Monitor reports, Concord becomes the air defense site for “all that territory in a triangle running from Concord to the fishing port of Gloucester and its splendid harbor, west to the more important commercial harbor at Portland and back to Concord.”
July 11, 2000: Like their counterparts around the country, local booksellers say they’ve sold all their copies of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In Concord alone, more than 1,000 copies were bought on the day of the book’s release.
July 11, 1973: The Concord City Council agrees to spend $1.6 million on a new police station and district court and extensive city hall renovations on Green Street.
July 12, 2002: Rents in Concord continue to rise, the Monitor reports. But compared with points south, the city remains a relative bargain.
July 12, 2000: The New Hampshire House passes four articles of impeachment against state Supreme Court Chief Justice David Brock. The last time the House impeached a judge on the state’s highest court was in 1790.
July 12, 1927: Mayor Fred Marden says he has received a telegram informing him that Col. Charles A. Lindbergh will soon fly to Concord in the Spirit of St. Louis.
July 13, 2001: Executive Councilor David Wheeler is holding up the nomination of a part-time judge to a once-a-week stint in Gorham District Court because of the judge’s views on guns, the Monitor reports. Wheeler says he objects to the fact that Judge Thomas Rappa of Bath has seized firearms from people accused of domestic violence. Wheeler acknowledges the practice is common but says he believes it’s unconstitutional.
July 13, 1987: The New York Yankees trade pitcher Bob Tewksbury of Concord and two other players to the Chicago Cubs for pitcher Steve Trout.
July 14, 2003: Roger “Bonzy” Thibeault, 41, of 38 River St. in Franklin, escapes from the Franklin District Court at 10 a.m. while the police are arraigning him in connection with one of the area’s biggest heroin busts. After a state police dog and helicopter and other local departments fail to locate Thibeault, the initial search ends by 3 p.m.
July 14, 2001: Gathering on tennis courts in Pittsfield, 525 people wearing Groucho Marx glasses make history – at least as it’s chronicled by the Guinness Book of World Records. The idea for the record grew out of this year’s Old Home Day theme: “Let’s Make ‘em Laugh.”
July 14, 1995: Speaking at a fund-raiser at Laconia Airport, former president George Bush tells the crowd he went to Fenway Park the previous night and was pleased to see the Texas Rangers defeat the Red Sox. When the crowd responds with good-natured boos, Bush says: “That’s all right. I don’t care what you think anymore.”
