On this day: August 7

POSTED: 02:38 PM PDT Aug 06, 2012    UPDATED: 11:00 PM PDT Aug 06, 2012 

The Purple Heart is born, a comic legend dies, a man on a wire goes for a stroll a quarter of a mile above the sidewalks of Manhattan, and U.S. embassies in Africa are targeted in a terrorist attack, all on this day.

OTD August 7 - Love Canal
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EPA

1978: President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal in Niagra Falls, N.Y., due to toxic waste that had been negligently disposed of. This was the first time in American history that emergency funds were used other than for a natural disaster.

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