July 23, 1981 (Thursday)
- Centralia mine fire: A coal mine fire, burning since May 27, 1962, broke to the surface in the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. Condemning and buying all the property in the town was less expensive than trying to extinguish the fire, so the 1,000 residents of Centralia were relocated over the next several years. The virtual ghost town had 20 residents by 2003.
- An artificial heart was implanted into a human being for the second time in history (the first was in 1969), as Dr. Denton Cooley placed the Akutsu-III into Willibrord Meuffels, a 26-year old Netherlands man undergoing bypass surgery at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston. Meuffels remained on the TAH for 55 hours until receiving a donor heart, dying from complications ten days later.
- Died: Kazuo Taoka, 68, Japanese organized crime boss who built the Yamaguchi-gumi gang into Japan's largest yakuza group; and Harvey Fletcher, 96, American inventor and pioneer in acoustical engineering.
Read more about this topic: July 1981
Famous quotes containing the word july:
“People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn’t buy vanilla ice cream. Except on July Fourth. Other days he had to be satisfied with chocolate.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)