Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is July 26. The FBI was born on this date in 1908 when U.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte ordered a group of newly hired federal investigators to report to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch of the Department of Justice. One year later, the Office of the Chief Examiner was renamed the Bureau of Investigation, and in 1935 it became the Federal Bureau of Investigation. J. Edgar Hoover did not join the bureau until 1917. He became acting director in 1924. Advertisement Africa's first sovereign, black-ruled democratic nation was founded on this date in 1847, when Liberia became a republic. The country had been settled by repatriated slaves from the United States. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was named commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines on this date in 1941. At the time, the United States had not yet entered World War II. One of the conditions for ending the 1991 Gulf War called for Iraq to allow U.N. inspectors to check on whether the country had any weapons of mass destruction--nuclear, chemical or biological. Of course, Baghdad wasn't thrilled about the idea and often interfered, but on this date in 1992, the Iraqi government backed down and agreed to allow a U.N. inspection team to do its job. Advertisement And NBC's "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" became the first network television show to be broadcast in stereo on this date in 1984. We now return you to the present, already in progress.
