Gospel and blues singer Mavis Staples marks her 86th birthday today, Friday, July 10, continuing a performing career that has spanned more than seven decades and helped define the soundtrack of the civil rights movement.
Born in Chicago in 1939, Staples began singing with her family's band The Staple Singers as a young girl. Her distinctive deep-throated voice propelled the group to the top of the charts eight times between 1971 and 1975, with hits including I'll Take You There, Let's Do It Again, and Respect Yourself. Her father, known as Pops, maintained a close friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the family marched alongside the civil rights leader while providing spiritual music to the movement.
The Grammy-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee has collaborated with an impressive roster of musical legends throughout her career. She worked with Prince on two of her sixteen solo albums, Time Waits for No One in 1989 and The Voice in 1993. She has toured with Bob Dylan and recorded with artists ranging from Ray Charles to Arcade Fire. Her voice also appears on the theme song for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
At age 80, Staples performed at the Apollo Theater alongside David Byrne and Norah Jones, returning to the venue where she first appeared as a teenager 63 years earlier. She has expressed no intention of retiring, citing her enduring love of performance.
Staples shares her birthday with several other significant historical figures and events. July 10 is recognized as Tesla Day, honoring Serbian-born inventor Nikola Tesla, who was born on this date in 1856. Tesla's groundbreaking work on electricity, wireless broadcast, and alternating current remains influential in modern technology.
The date also marks the birth of heavy metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio in 1942 and pioneering educator Mary McLeod Bethune in 1875. Bethune, born to former slaves in South Carolina, founded what would become Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona, Florida, starting with just one dollar and fifty cents. She later became a close adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt and the only Black woman present at the founding of the United Nations.
Eight years ago today, the world watched as rescuers successfully extracted twelve young football players and their teacher from Tham Luang Cave in Thailand after more than two weeks trapped underground. The massive rescue operation involved approximately 10,000 people, including more than 100 divers from multiple countries. Rescue teams pumped over one billion liters of water from the caves and ultimately sedated each child for the dangerous journey through submerged passages.
The rescue came at a tragic cost. Five days before the successful extraction, Saman Kunan, a 37-year-old former Thai Navy SEAL, lost consciousness and died of asphyxiation while delivering air tanks to one of the submerged chambers. The Thai royal family sponsored and attended his funeral on July 14, 2018, and King Vajiralongkorn awarded him the Knight Grand Cross of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant. A memorial sculpture now stands at the cave entrance, depicting Kunan leading a group of small pigs with a flashlight, referencing the football team's name, the Wild Boars.
Other notable events on July 10 include the beginning of armistice talks to end the Korean conflict at Kaesong in 1951, and the Bahamas gaining full independence from Britain in 1973 after 344 years of colonial rule. The Caribbean nation, consisting of more than 700 islands, cays, and islets, has since developed a tourism-based economy that has created a higher standard of living compared to surrounding nations.
In more recent history, July 10, 1985, saw Coca-Cola bow to consumer pressure and cancel New Coke, while 1991 brought both the beginning of Boris Yeltsin's term as the first elected President of Russia and the readmission of the South African cricket team to the International Cricket Council following the end of Apartheid. In 1995, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was freed after nearly six years of house arrest in Yangon, Myanmar.