Today in History
July 10
1941: Legendary jazz pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton died in Los Angeles. His musical innovations accelerated the development of jazz. Born Ferdinand Joseph La Menthe in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 20, 1890, Morton began playing piano as a child. At age twelve he worked nightspots in the city's Storyville district. Between 1904 and 1917, Morton crisscrossed the nation playing minstrel and vaudeville shows. Billing himself as "Jelly Roll" Morton, by 1910 his style embraced a range of influences from ragtime and popular music to blues and spirituals. (Source: Library of Congress)
1913: The world's highest surface air temperature ever recorded - 134 degrees Fahrenheit - was recorded at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley, California.
1905: Millie Augustine Wirt Benson, ghostwriter for the early Nancy Drew mysteries, was born in Ladora, Iowa.
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