TODAY IN HISTORY

Thurgood Marshall confirmed as Supreme Court justice

On August 30, 1967, Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. He would remain on the Supreme Court for 24 years before retiring for health reasons, leaving a legacy of upholding the rights of the individual as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

From a young age, Marshall seemed destined for a place in the American justice system. His parents instilled in him an appreciation for the Constitution, a feeling that was reinforced by his schoolteachers, who forced him to read the document as punishment for his misbehavior. After graduating from Lincoln University in 1930, Marshall sought admission to the University of Maryland School of Law, but was turned away because of the school’s segregation policy, which effectively forbade Black students from studying with whites. Instead, Marshall attended Howard University Law School, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1933. (Marshall later successfully sued Maryland School of Law for their unfair admissions policy.)

Setting up a private practice in his home state of Maryland, Marshall quickly established a reputation as a lawyer for the “little man.” In a year’s time, he began working with the Baltimore NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and went on to become the organization’s chief counsel by the time he was 32, in 1940. Over the next two decades, Marshall distinguished himself as one of the country’s leading advocates for individual rights, winning 29 of the 32 cases he argued in front of the Supreme Court, all of which challenged in some way the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine that had been established by the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). The high-water mark of Marshall’s career as a litigator came in 1954 with his victory in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. In that case, Marshall argued that the ‘separate but equal’ principle was unconstitutional, and designed to keep Black people “as near [slavery] as possible.”

In 1961, Marshall was appointed by then-President John F. Kennedy to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, a position he held until 1965, when Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, named him solicitor general. Following the retirement of Justice Tom Clark in 1967, President Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court, a decision confirmed by the Senate with a 69-11 vote. Over the next 24 years, Justice Marshall came out in favor of abortion rights and against the death penalty, as he continued his tireless commitment to ensuring equitable treatment of individuals—particularly minorities—by state and federal governments.







ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1980

Christopher Cross has his first of two #1 hits with “Sailing”

Young American singer-songwriter Christopher Cross completes a meteoric rise from obscurity when his hit ballad “Sailing” reaches the top of the Billboard pop chart on August 30, 1980. A year later, MTV’s first minutes on air feature the music video for “Video Killed The Radio Star,” by British synth-pop duo The Buggles. In the years since, many observers link these events to Cross' eventual decline. But even if MTV “killed” the radio star, it did so only after a run as great and unexpected as any in pop history.





AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1776

Washington refuses British general's letter of reconciliation

On August 30, 1776, General George Washington gives the New York Convention three reasons for the American retreat from Long Island. That same day, he rejects British General William Howe’s second letter of reconciliation. With Howe and a superior British force having recently landed at Long Island—they handed the Continentals a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Brooklyn Heights on August 27—Washington gave these reasons for his decision to retreat: the need to reunite his forces, the extreme fatigue of his soldiers and the lack of proper shelter from the weather.





BLACK HISTORY

1983

Guion S. Bluford becomes the first African American to travel to space

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford becomes the first African American to travel into space when the space shuttle Challenger lifts off on its third mission. It was the first night launch of a space shuttle, and many people stayed up late to watch the spacecraft roar up from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 2:32 a.m.





RUSSIA

1918

Vladimir Lenin shot

After speaking at a factory in Moscow, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is shot twice by Fanya Kaplan, a member of the Social Revolutionary party. Lenin was seriously wounded but survived the attack. The assassination attempt set off a wave of reprisals by the Bolsheviks against the Social Revolutionaries and other political opponents. Thousands were executed as Russia fell deeper into civil war.





VIETNAM WAR

1969

Ho Chi Minh responds to Nixon letter

Ho Chi Minh’s reply to President Nixon’s letter of July 15 is received in Paris. Ho accused the United States of a “war of aggression” against the Vietnamese people, “violating our fundamental national rights” and warned that “the longer the war goes on, the more it accumulates the mourning and burdens of the American people.” Ho said he favored the National Liberation Front’s 10-point plan as “a logical and reasonable basis for the settlement of the Vietnamese problem.” Ho demanded that the United States “cease the war of aggression,” withdraw its troops from Vietnam and allow self-determination for the Vietnamese people. President Nixon would not reveal that he had received this communication until his speech to the nation on November 3.





U.S. PRESIDENTS

1963

Hotline established between Washington and Moscow

On August 30, 1963, John F. Kennedy becomes the first U.S. president to have a direct phone line to the Kremlin in Moscow. The “hotline” was designed to facilitate communication between the president and Soviet premier. The establishment of the hotline to the Kremlin came in the the wake of the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the U.S. and U.S.S.R had come dangerously close to all-out nuclear war. Kennedy’s administration had discovered that the Soviets had planted missiles capable of launching nuclear warheads into the U.S. on the island of Cuba. The highly tense diplomatic exchange that followed was plagued by delays caused by slow and tedious communication systems. Encrypted messages had to be relayed by telegraph or radioed between the Kremlin and the Pentagon. Although Kennedy and Khrushchev were able to resolve the crisis peacefully and had both signed a nuclear test-ban treaty on August 5, 1963, fears of future “misunderstandings” led to the installation of an improved communications system.







ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

2003

Movie tough guy Charles Bronson dies

On August 30, 2003, the actor Charles Bronson, best known for his tough-guy roles in such films as The Dirty Dozen and the Death Wish franchise, dies at the age of 81 in Los Angeles. Bronson was born Charles Buchinsky on November 3, 1921, in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, to Lithuanian immigrants. The 11th of 15 children, he worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines as a teenager and later served in the Army during World War II. After the war, he worked a series of odd jobs and took acting lessons. He had an uncredited part in the 1951 film You’re in the Navy Now, starring Gary Cooper, and a small part (credited as Charles Buchinsky) in 1952’s Pat and Mike, with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. In the mid-1950s, he changed his name to Bronson because he believed it wasn’t smart for an actor to have a Russian-sounding last name at a time when there was a strong anti-Communist sentiment in America.





CRIME

1989

A murdering couple is sentenced to death

Cynthia Coffman and James Marlow are sentenced to death in San Bernardino, California, for the 1986 murder of Corinna Novis. Coffman was the first woman to receive a death sentence in the state since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977. Coffman first met Marlow in May 1986, just after he was released from prison. Marlow, a career criminal, had been locked up for stealing his sixth wife’s car. An earlier stint in Folsom prison had earned him the nickname of “The Folsom Wolf.” Coffman and Marlow hit it off so fast that within weeks they were traveling the country together.





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

2006

California Senate passes Global Warming Solutions Act

On August 30, 2006, the California State Senate passes Assembly Bill (AB) 32—otherwise known as the Global Warming Solutions Act. The law made California the first state in America to place caps on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, including those found in automobile emissions.

TODAY IN HISTORY


Hurricane Katrina slams into Gulf Coast

Hurricane Katrina makes landfall near New Orleans, Louisiana, as a Category 3 hurricane on August 29, 2005. Despite being only the third most powerful storm of the 2005 hurricane season, Katrina was among the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States. In the wake of the storm, there were over 50 failures of the levees and flood walls around New Orleans and its suburbs. The levee and flood wall failures caused widespread flooding.

After briefly coming ashore in southern Florida on August 25 as a Category 1 hurricane, Katrina gained strength before slamming into the Gulf Coast on August 29. In addition to bringing devastation to the New Orleans area, the hurricane caused damage along the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, as well as other parts of Louisiana.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city on August 28, when Katrina briefly achieved Category 5 status and the National Weather Service predicted “devastating” damage to the area. But an estimated 150,000 people, who either did not want to or did not have the resources to leave, ignored the order and stayed behind. The storm brought sustained winds of 145 miles per hour, which cut power lines and destroyed homes, even turning cars into projectile missiles. Katrina caused record storm surges all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The surges overwhelmed the levees that protected New Orleans, located at six feet below sea level, from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. Soon, 80 percent of the city was flooded up to the rooftops of many homes and small buildings.

Tens of thousands of people sought shelter in the New Orleans Convention Center and the Louisiana Superdome. The situation in both places quickly deteriorated, as food and water ran low and conditions became unsanitary. Frustration mounted as it took up to two days for a full-scale relief effort to begin. In the meantime, the stranded residents suffered from heat, hunger, and a lack of medical care.

Reports of looting, rape and even murder began to surface. As news networks broadcast scenes from the devastated city to the world, it became obvious that a vast majority of the victims were African American and poor, leading to difficult questions among the public about the state of racial equality in the United States. The federal government and President George W. Bush were roundly criticized for what was perceived as their slow response to the disaster. The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Michael Brown, resigned amid the ensuing controversy.

Finally, on September 1, the tens of thousands of people staying in the damaged Superdome and Convention Center begin to be moved to the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, and another mandatory evacuation order was issued for the city. The next day, military convoys arrived with supplies and the National Guard was brought in to bring a halt to lawlessness. Efforts began to collect and identify corpses. On September 6, eight days after the hurricane, the Army Corps of Engineers finally completed temporary repairs to the three major holes in New Orleans’ levee system and were able to begin pumping water out of the city.

In all, it is believed that the hurricane caused more than 1,800 deaths and up to $150 billion in damages to both private property and public infrastructure. One million people were displaced by the disaster, a phenomenon unseen in the United States since the Great Depression. Four hundred thousand people lost their jobs as a result of the disaster. Offers of international aid poured in from around the world, even from poor countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Private donations from U.S. citizens alone approached $600 million.

The storm also set off 36 tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, resulting in one death.

President Bush declared September 16 a national day of remembrance for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

In a 2006 federal report, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers admitted that the flood-control complex surrounding New Orleans had been incomplete, insufficient and improperly maintained. "The hurricane protection system in New Orleans and southeast Louisiana was a system in name only," said the report.







NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY

1970

Native American group occupies Mount Rushmore to protest broken Treaty of Fort Laramie

Around dusk on the evening on August 29, 1970, a group of 23 Native American activists climbs to the top of Mount Rushmore. Renaming the landmark Crazy Horse Mountain, in honor of the Lakota leader who famously resisted white Americans’ incursions into the area, the protesters are there to reclaim land they believe to be rightfully theirs under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which guaranteed Indigenous people the right to all of Western South Dakota. The occupation will last for two months, beginning a new chapter in Native American activism.





1980S

1987

HIV-positive Ray brothers' home burned down

On August 29, 1987, the home of the Ray brothers—three HIV-positive Florida boys—burns down in what was almost certainly a case of arson. The three brothers, who are not in the house at the time, have already faced intense discrimination due to their HIV status, and today their story serves as a reminder of the brutal reality of America’s reaction to the HIV/AIDS crisis.





VIETNAM WAR

1970

Thousands of Mexican-American antiwar activists march in Chicano Moratorium

On August 29, 1970, more than 20,000 Mexican-Americans march through East Los Angeles to protest the Vietnam War. The Chicano Moratorium, as this massive protest was known, was peaceful until the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department entered Laguna Park, sparking violence and rioting that led to three deaths. The Chicano Moratorium is now remembered both as the tragic end of one stage of Chicano activism and as a moment that galvanized and inspired a new generation of activists.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1958

Michael Jackson is born

Pop sensation Michael Jackson is born on August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana. Jackson began performing with his four brothers in the pop group the Jackson 5 when he was a child. The group scored its first No. 1 single in 1969, with “I Want You Back.” By age 11, Jackson was appearing on TV, and by age 14 he had released his first solo album. A Jackson 5 TV cartoon series appeared in the early ’70s, and in 1976 the Jackson family, including sister Janet Jackson, launched a TV variety show called The Jacksons that ran for one season. Throughout the 70s, media attention focused on Michael, who piped vocals in his high voice for “ABC,” “I’ll Be There,” and many other Top 20 hits.





ANCIENT AMERICAS

1533

Pizarro executes last Inca emperor

Atahuallpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, dies by strangulation at the hands of Francisco Pizarro’s Spanish conquistadors. The execution of Atahuallpa, the last free reigning emperor, marked the end of 300 years of Inca civilization. High in the Andes Mountains of Peru, the Inca built a dazzling empire that governed a population of 12 million people. Although they had no writing system, they had an elaborate government, great public works and a brilliant agricultural system. In the five years before the Spanish arrival, a devastating war of succession gripped the empire. In 1532, Atahuallpa’s army defeated the forces of his half-brother Huascar in a battle near Cuzco. Atahuallpa was consolidating his rule when Pizarro and his 180 soldiers appeared.





COLD WAR

1949

Soviets explode atomic bomb

At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name “First Lightning.” In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Soviet scientists constructed buildings, bridges, and other civilian structures in the vicinity of the bomb. They also placed animals in cages nearby so that they could test the effects of nuclear radiation on human-like mammals. The atomic explosion, which at 20 kilotons was roughly equal to “Trinity,” the first U.S. atomic explosion, destroyed those structures and incinerated the animals.





SPORTS

2004

Brazilian marathoner assaulted at Olympics

On August 29, 2004, Brazilian distance runner Vanderlei de Lima is attacked by a spectator while running the marathon, the final event of the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. At the time of the incident, De Lima had a 30-second lead in the race with four miles to go.





NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY

1911

Ishi discovered in California

Ishi, who was described as the last surviving member of the Native Amercain Yahi tribe, is discovered in California on August 29, 1911. By the first decade of the 20th century, Euro-Americans had so overwhelmed the North American continent that scarcely any Native Americans remained who had not been assimilated into Anglo society to some degree. Ishi appears to have been something of an exception. Found lost and starving near an Oroville, California, slaughterhouse, he was largely unfamiliar with white American ways and spoke no English.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1982

Actress Ingrid Bergman dies on her birthday

On August 29, 1982, the Swedish-born actress and three-time Academy Award winner Ingrid Bergman dies of cancer on her 67th birthday. Bergman, who was best known for her role as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca, created an international scandal in 1950 when she had a son with the Italian director Roberto Rossellini, to whom she was not married at the time.





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

1960

Hurricane Donna is born

On August 29, 1960, the storm that would become Hurricane Donna forms near Cape Verde off the African coast. It would go on to cause 150 deaths from Puerto Rico to New England over the next two weeks. On August 31, Donna attained hurricane status and headed west toward the Caribbean Sea. It was a Category 4 hurricane by the time it reached the Leeward Islands on September 4. Donna wreaked havoc on Puerto Rico and a portion of the Bahamas before turning northeast toward Cuba and the Florida Keys.





CRIME

2007

Richard Jewell, hero security guard wrongly accused as Olympic bombing suspect, dies

Richard Jewell, the hero security guard turned Olympic bombing suspect, dies at age 44 of natural causes at his Georgia home. On July 27, 1996, during the Summer Games in Atlanta, a pipe bomb with nails went off in crowded Centennial Olympic Park, killing one woman and injuring 111 other people. Shortly before the explosion, Richard Jewell, who was working as a temporary security guard in the area, discovered a suspicious-looking backpack abandoned beneath a park bench. Jewell alerted police to the backpack, which held a bomb, and moved people out of harm’s way before it exploded. In the aftermath of the bombing, Jewell was praised as a hero for his actions. However, three days later, the media reported that Jewell was being investigated as a suspect in the case. Although he was never arrested or charged with any crime, for the next three months, Jewell faced intense scrutiny from both law enforcement officials and the media, who combed through his background and tracked his movements. Even after the Justice Department officially cleared Jewell of any involvement in the bombing in late October 1996, some people still viewed him with suspicion.





CIVIL WAR

1862

North and South clash at the Second Battle of Bull Run

Confederate General Robert E. Lee deals a stinging defeat to Union General John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Virginia—a battle that arose out of the failure of Union General George McClellan’s Peninsular campaign earlier in the summer. Frustrated with McClellan, who was still camped on the James Peninsula southeast of Richmond, President Abraham Lincoln and General-in-Chief Henry Halleck decided to pull a substantial part of McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and send it to General John Pope’s newly formed Army of Virginia.





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1876

Charles F. Kettering, inventor of electric self-starter, is born

Charles Franklin Kettering, the American engineer and longtime director of research for General Motors Corp. (GM), is born on August 29, 1876, in Loudonville, Ohio. Of the 140 patents Kettering obtained over the course of his lifetime, perhaps the most notable was his electric self-starter for the automobile, patented in 1915.





WORLD WAR I

1914

Women join British war effort

On August 29, 1914, with World War I approaching the end of its first month, the Women’s Defense Relief Corps is formed in Britain. Though women’s rights organizations in Britain had initially opposed the country’s entrance into the First World War, they reversed their position soon enough, recognizing the potential of the war effort to gain advancement for British women on the home front. As early as August 6, 1914, just one day after Britain declared war on Germany, an article published in the women’s suffrage newspaper Common Cause stated that: “In the midst of this time of terrible anxiety and grief, it is some little comfort to think that our large organization, which has been completely built up during past years to promote women’s suffrage, can be used to help our country through the period of strain and sorrow.”

TODAY IN HISTORY

Emmett Till is murdered

On August 28, 1955, while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier.

His assailants—the white woman’s husband and his brother—made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and then threw his body, tied to the cotton gin fan with barbed wire, into the river.

Who Was Emmett Till?

Till grew up in a working-class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, and though he had attended a segregated elementary school, he was not prepared for the level of segregation he encountered in Mississippi. His mother warned him to take care because of his race, but Emmett enjoyed pulling pranks.

On August 24, while standing with his cousins and some friends outside a country store in Money, Emmett bragged that his girlfriend back home was white. Emmett’s African American companions, disbelieving him, dared Emmett to ask the white woman sitting behind the store counter for a date.

He went in, bought some candy, and on the way out was heard saying, “Bye, baby” to the woman. There were no witnesses in the store, but Carolyn Bryant—the woman behind the counter—later claimed that he grabbed her, made lewd advances and wolf-whistled at her as he sauntered out.

Roy Bryant, the proprietor of the store and the woman’s husband, returned from a business trip a few days later and heard how Emmett had allegedly spoken to his wife. Enraged, he went to the home of Till’s great uncle, Mose Wright, with his half-brother J.W. Milam in the early morning hours of August 28.

The pair demanded to see the boy. Despite pleas from Wright, they forced Emmett into their car. After driving around in the night, and perhaps beating Till in a toolhouse behind Milam’s residence, they drove him down to the Tallahatchie River.

Three days later, his corpse was recovered but was so disfigured that Mose Wright could only identify it by an initialed ring. Authorities wanted to bury the body quickly, but Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley, requested it be sent back to Chicago.

Open-Casket Funeral After seeing the mutilated remains, she decided to have an open-casket funeral so that all the world could see what racist murderers had done to her only son. Jet, an African American weekly magazine, published a photo of Emmett’s corpse, and soon the mainstream media picked up on the story.

Less than two weeks after Emmett’s body was buried, Milam and Bryant went on trial in a segregated courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi. There were few witnesses besides Mose Wright, who positively identified the defendants as Emmett’s killers.

On September 23, the all-white jury deliberated for less than an hour before issuing a verdict of “not guilty,” explaining that they believed the state had failed to prove the identity of the body. Many people around the country were outraged by the decision and also by the state’s decision not to indict Milam and Bryant on the separate charge of kidnapping.

Carolyn Bryant Confesses The Emmett Till murder trial brought to light the brutality of Jim Crow segregation in the South and was an early impetus of the civil rights movement.

In 2017, Tim Tyson, author of the book The Blood of Emmett Till, revealed that Carolyn Bryant recanted her testimony, admitting that Till had never touched, threatened or harassed her. “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she said. In 2022, a grand jury in Mississippi declined to indict Bryant for her role in the crime nearly 70 years earlier.

In March of 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law, making lynching a federal hate crime.









US POLITICS

1968

Protests at Democratic National Convention in Chicago

On August 28, 1968, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam.





AFRICA

1879

Zulu king captured

King Cetshwayo, the last great ruler of Zululand, is captured by the British following his defeat in the British-Zulu War. He was subsequently sent into exile. Cetshwayo’s defiance of British rule in southern Africa led to Britain’s invasion of Zululand in 1879.





BLACK HISTORY

1963

Martin Luther King Jr. delivers "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the African American civil rights movement reaches its high-water mark when Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech to about 250,000 people attending the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The ...read more





GREAT BRITAIN

1996

Charles and Diana divorce

After four years of separation, Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, and his wife, Princess Diana, formally divorce. On July 29, 1981, nearly one billion television viewers in 74 countries tuned in to witness the marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British invasion of Zululand in 1879.





WORLD WAR II

1941

Mass slaughter in Ukraine

On August 28, 1941, more than 23,000 Hungarian Jews are murdered by the Gestapo in occupied Ukraine. The German invasion of the Soviet Union had advanced to the point of mass air raids on Moscow and the occupation of parts of Ukraine. On August 26, Hitler displayed the joys of conquest by inviting Benito Mussolini to Brest-Litovsk, where the Germans had destroyed the city’s citadel. The grand irony is that Ukrainians had originally viewed the Germans as liberators from their Soviet oppressors and an ally in the struggle for independence. But as early as July, the Germans were arresting Ukrainians agitating and organizing for a provisional state government with an eye toward autonomy and throwing them into concentration camps. The Germans also began carving the nation up, dispensing parts to Poland (already occupied by Germany) and Romania.





U.S. PRESIDENTS

1917

President Woodrow Wilson picketed by women suffragists

On August 28, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson is picketed by suffragists in front of the White House, who demand that he support an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee women the right to vote. Wilson had a history of lukewarm support for women’s suffrage, although he paid lip service to suffragists’ demands during political campaigns and greeted previously peaceful suffrage demonstrators at the White House with decorum. He was also a former teacher at a women’s college and the father of two daughters who considered themselves “suffragettes.” During the 1912 presidential campaign against Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson and his opponent agreed on many reform measures such as child-labor laws and pro-union legislation. They differed, however, on the subject of women’s suffrage, as Roosevelt was in favor of giving women the vote.





WESTWARD EXPANSION

1869

Three leave Powell’s Grand Canyon expedition

Convinced they will have a better chance surviving the desert than the raging rapids that lay ahead, three men leave John Wesley Powell’s expedition through the Grand Canyon and scale the cliffs to the plateau above. Though it turned out the men had made a serious mistake, they can hardly be faulted for believing that Powell’s plan to float the brutal rapids was suicidal. Powell, a one-armed Civil War veteran and self-trained naturalist, had embarked on his daring descent of the mighty Colorado River three months earlier. Accompanied by 11 men in four wooden boats, he led the expedition through the Grand Canyon and over punishing rapids that many would hesitate to run even with modern rafts.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1963

Mahalia Jackson prompts Martin Luther King Jr. to improvise 'I Have a Dream' speech

If the legendary gospel vocalist Mahalia Jackson had been somewhere other than the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, her place in history would still have been assured purely on the basis of her musical legacy. But it is almost impossible to imagine Mahalia Jackson having been anywhere other than center stage at the historic March on Washington on August 28, 1963, where she not only performed as the lead-in to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his “I Have a Dream” speech, but she also played a direct role in turning that speech into one of the most memorable and meaningful in American history.





GERMANY

1988

Air-show accident burns spectators

An air show involving military jets at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany turns tragic on August 28, 1988 when three jets collide in mid-air and fall into the crowd. Sixty-nine of the 100,000 spectators died and hundreds more were injured. Toward the end of the NATO-sponsored show on August 28, Italy’s Frecce Tricolori team, flying Aermacchi MB 339 jets, began their routine. The team was led by Lieutenant Colonel Ivo Nutallari, who attempted a crossover move in which his plane passed very close to the other team jets. Nutallari miscalculated the daring move and his jet collided with the main group. Three of the jets exploded in mid-air, causing wreckage and jet fuel to rain down on the crowd. The three pilots died instantly, as did approximately 30 spectators. Even more people were seriously injured, many with critical burns. Over the course of the next two months, about 30 other victims died in hospitals because of their extensive burns.





CRIME

1990

Murdered students are discovered at the University of Florida

The bodies of Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada are discovered at the Gatorwood Apartments, near the campus of the University of Florida. Their murders came two days after the discovery that three young female students had been killed and mutilated in two separate locations near the campus. The serial killer was known for positioning his victims’ bodies in a lewd manner before he left. Authorities determined that all five murders were connected, and the Gainesville student community panicked.





RELIGION

1774

St. Elizabeth born in New York City

Elizabeth Ann Bayley is born in New York City on August 28, 1774. She went on to found the first Catholic school and the first female apostolic community in the United States. She was also the first American-born saint beatified by the Roman Catholic Church. Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born to an eminent physician, Richard Bayley, who served as the first health officer of New York City. Her mother, Catherine, was an Episcopal minister’s daughter who died before Elizabeth’s third birthday, leaving three daughters. Her father remarried and had four additional children. At age 19, Elizabeth married a wealthy shipping magnate, William Magee Seton, with whom she had five children in quick succession. Seton’s health deteriorated after his financial holdings collapsed and he died of tuberculosis in Italy shortly before the couple’s 10th anniversary. Elizabeth’s eldest daughter followed her father to the grave nine years later.

TODAY IN HISTORY


First televised Major League baseball game

On August 26, 1939, the first televised Major League baseball game is broadcast on station W2XBS, the station that was to become WNBC-TV. Announcer Red Barber called the game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York.

At the time, television was still in its infancy. Regular programming did not yet exist, and very few people owned television sets—there were only about 400 in the New York area. Not until 1946 did regular network broadcasting catch on in the United States, and only in the mid-1950s did television sets become more common in the American household.

In 1939, the World’s Fair—which was being held in New York—became the catalyst for the historic broadcast. The television was one of the fair’s prize exhibits, and organizers believed that the Dodgers-Reds doubleheader on August 26 was the perfect event to showcase America’s grasp on the new technology.

By today’s standards, the video coverage was somewhat crude. There were only two stationary camera angles: The first was placed down the third base line to pick up infield throws to first, and the second was placed high above home plate to get an extensive view of the field. It was also difficult to capture fast-moving plays: Swinging bats looked like paper fans, and the ball was all but invisible during pitches and hits.

Nevertheless, the experiment was a success, driving interest in the development of television technology, particularly for sporting events. Though baseball owners were initially concerned that televising baseball would sap actual attendance, they soon warmed to the idea. In particular, they embraced the possibilities for revenue generation that came with increased exposure of the game, including the sale of rights to air certain teams or games and television advertising.

Today, televised sports is a multi-billion dollar industry, with technology that gives viewers an astounding amount of visual and audio detail. Cameras are now so precise that they can capture the way a ball changes shape when struck by a bat, and athletes are wired to pick up field-level and sideline conversation.








SPORTS

2016

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick sits during national anthem, gives interview about it for the first time

At an NFL preseason game on August 26, 2016, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick remains seated as other players stand to observe the national anthem. This simple action, which Kaepernick makes no attempt to broadcast to the public, gives rise to a controversy that will bring to light the racial tensions within American sports, determine the fate of Kaepernick’s football career and reverberate across the sporting world for years to come.




CRIME

1986

“Preppy Murder” stuns New York

On August 26, 1986, 18-year-old Jennifer Levin is found dead in New York City’s Central Park less than two hours after she was seen leaving a bar on the city’s Upper East Side with 19-year-old Robert Chambers. The tall, handsome Chambers was soon arrested and charged with murder.




FRANCE

1346

Battle of Crecy

During the Hundred Years War, King Edward III’s English army annihilates a French force under King Philip VI at the Battle of Crecy in Normandy. The battle, which saw an early use of the deadly longbow by the English, is regarded as one of the most decisive in history.




US POLITICS

1968

Democratic convention besieged by protesters

As the Democratic National Convention gets underway in Chicago, thousands of antiwar demonstrators take to Chicago’s streets to protest the Vietnam War and its support by the top Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.




UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

1920

19th Amendment adopted

The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution by proclamation of Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby. The amendment was the culmination of more than 70 years of struggle by woman suffragists.




US POLITICS

1964

Lyndon B. Johnson receives Democratic nomination for president

Lyndon B. Johnson is nominated to run for the presidency at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. His running mate would be Hubert H. Humphrey. Former Vice President Johnson had assumed the reigns of government in November 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Upon assuming office, he inherited a commitment to Vietnam where Kennedy had sent military advisors to support the South Vietnamese government in Saigon.




U.S. PRESIDENTS

1794

President George Washington decides to subdue Whisky Rebellion

On August 26, 1794, President George Washington writes to Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, Virginia’s governor and a former general, regarding the Whiskey Rebellion, an insurrection that was the first great test of Washington’s authority as president of the United States.




ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1978

"Grease" movie soundtrack earns its second #1 hit

The 1960s was the final decade in which the musical hits of Broadway were routinely and successfully adapted by Hollywood into big-budget screen versions. West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound Of Music (1965), Funny Girl (1968)—all of these movie musicals were among the biggest critical and commercial hits of their era. But while the early part of the subsequent decade brought successful adaptations of Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and Cabaret (1972), Hollywood had all but given up Broadway by the middle of the 1970s. And then, in 1978, Paramount Pictures placed a big bet on a small musical called Grease and came up with not just an enormous hit movie, but a true pop-cultural phenomenon that included one of the most successful original motion picture soundtrack albums in music history. On August 29, 1978, that album earned its second chart-topping hit when its third single—Frankie Valli’s “Grease”—reached the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.




COLD WAR

1957

Russia tests an intercontinental ballistic missile

The Soviet Union announces that it has successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of being fired “into any part of the world.” The announcement caused great concern in the United States, and started a national debate over the “missile gap” between America and Russia.




WORLD WAR I

1914

Battle of Tannenberg begins

On August 26, 1914, the German 8th Army, under the leadership of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, strikes with lethal force against the advancing Russian 2nd Army, led by General Aleksandr Samsonov, in East Prussia during the opening weeks of the First World War.

TODAY IN HISTORY


Mount Vesuvius erupts

On August 24, after centuries of dormancy, Mount Vesuvius erupts in southern Italy, devastating the prosperous Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing thousands. The cities, buried under a thick layer of volcanic material and mud, were never rebuilt and largely forgotten in the course of history. In the 18th century, Pompeii and Herculaneum were rediscovered and excavated, providing an unprecedented archaeological record of the everyday life of an ancient civilization, startlingly preserved in sudden death.

The ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum thrived near the base of Mount Vesuvius at the Bay of Naples. In the time of the early Roman Empire, 20,000 people lived in Pompeii, including merchants, manufacturers, and farmers who exploited the rich soil of the region with numerous vineyards and orchards. None suspected that the black fertile earth was the legacy of earlier eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. Herculaneum was a city of 5,000 and a favorite summer destination for rich Romans. Named for the mythic hero Hercules, Herculaneum housed opulent villas and grand Roman baths. Gambling artifacts found in Herculaneum and a brothel unearthed in Pompeii attest to the decadent nature of the cities. There were smaller resort communities in the area as well, such as the quiet little town of Stabiae.

At noon on August 24, 79 A.D., this pleasure and prosperity came to an end when the peak of Mount Vesuvius exploded, propelling a 10-mile mushroom cloud of ash and pumice into the stratosphere. For the next 12 hours, volcanic ash and a hail of pumice stones up to 3 inches in diameter showered Pompeii, forcing the city’s occupants to flee in terror. Some 2,000 people stayed in Pompeii, holed up in cellars or stone structures, hoping to wait out the eruption.

A westerly wind protected Herculaneum from the initial stage of the eruption, but then a giant cloud of hot ash and gas surged down the western flank of Vesuvius, engulfing the city and burning or asphyxiating all who remained. This lethal cloud was followed by a flood of volcanic mud and rock, burying the city.

The people who remained in Pompeii were killed on the morning of August 25 when a cloud of toxic gas poured into the city, suffocating all that remained. A flow of rock and ash followed, collapsing roofs and walls and burying the dead.

Much of what we know about the eruption comes from an account by Pliny the Younger, who was staying west along the Bay of Naples when Vesuvius exploded. In two letters to the historian Tacitus, he told of how “people covered their heads with pillows, the only defense against a shower of stones,” and of how “a dark and horrible cloud charged with combustible matter suddenly broke and set forth. Some bewailed their own fate. Others prayed to die.” Pliny, only 17 at the time, escaped the catastrophe and later became a noted Roman writer and administrator. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, was less lucky. Pliny the Elder, a celebrated naturalist, at the time of the eruption was the commander of the Roman fleet in the Bay of Naples. After Vesuvius exploded, he took his boats across the bay to Stabiae, to investigate the eruption and reassure terrified citizens. After going ashore, he was overcome by toxic gas and died.

According to Pliny the Younger’s account, the eruption lasted 18 hours. Pompeii was buried under 14 to 17 feet of ash and pumice, and the nearby seacoast was drastically changed. Herculaneum was buried under more than 60 feet of mud and volcanic material. Some residents of Pompeii later returned to dig out their destroyed homes and salvage their valuables, but many treasures were left and then forgotten.

Archaeologists have long debated whether the mountain actually erupted on August 24. Some have pointed to autumnal fruits discovered in the ruins as a sign that the date is too early. An inscription uncovered in 2018 also suggests the eruption could have taken place two months later in mid-October.

In the 18th century, a well digger unearthed a marble statue on the site of Herculaneum. The local government excavated some other valuable art objects, but the project was abandoned. In 1748, a farmer found traces of Pompeii beneath his vineyard. Since then, excavations have gone on nearly without interruption until the present. In 1927, the Italian government resumed the excavation of Herculaneum, retrieving numerous art treasures, including bronze and marble statues and paintings.

The remains of 2,000 men, women, and children were found at Pompeii. After perishing from asphyxiation, their bodies were covered with ash that hardened and preserved the outline of their bodies. Later, their bodies decomposed to skeletal remains, leaving a kind of plaster mold behind. Archaeologists who found these molds filled the hollows with plaster, revealing in grim detail the death pose of the victims of Vesuvius. The rest of the city is likewise frozen in time, and ordinary objects that tell the story of everyday life in Pompeii are as valuable to archaeologists as the great unearthed statues and frescoes. It was not until 1982 that the first human remains were found at Herculaneum, and these hundreds of skeletons bear ghastly burn marks that testifies to horrifying deaths.

Today, Mount Vesuvius is the only active volcano on the European mainland. Its last eruption was in 1944 and its last major eruption was in 1631. Another eruption is expected in the near future, which could be devastating for the 700,000 people who live in the “death zones” around Vesuvius.







SPACE EXPLORATION

2006

Pluto is demoted

In Prague on August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union votes to demote Pluto from the ninth planet from the Sun to one of dozens of known dwarf planets. The vote followed a week of debate by the IAU, who voted on multiple proposals including one that kept not just Pluto as a planet but added two new planets—the asteroid Ceres and Pluto’s moon Charon. The ultimate proposal defined the word “planets” (which comes from the Greek word planets, or “wanderers”) supposedly once and for all: planets are celestial objects large enough to be made rounded by their gravitational orbit around the Sun and to have pushed away nearby planetary objects and debris. Two years later, the IAU decided on a name for dwarf planets similar to Pluto—“plutoid”—grouping Pluto with Eris.





CRIME

2012

Killer in Norway massacre is sentenced

On August 24, 2012, the man who killed 77 people in a July 22, 2011, bombing and shooting attack in Norway is sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum allowed under Norwegian law. Anders Behring Breivik, a 33-year-old right-wing extremist with anti-Muslim views, carried out attacks in Oslo, the nation’s capital, and at a youth camp on the nearby island of Utoya because he wanted to call attention to what he referred to as the “Islamic colonization” of Europe and inspire an uprising against it. The attacks were the deadliest the nation of 5 million residents had experienced since World War II.





FRANCE

1572

Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

King Charles IX of France, under the sway of his mother, Catherine de Medici, orders the assassination of Huguenot Protestant leaders in Paris, setting off an orgy of killing that results in the massacre of tens of thousands of Huguenots all across France.





MEXICO

1821

Spain accepts Mexican independence

Eleven years after the outbreak of the Mexican War of Independence, Spanish Viceroy Juan de O’Donojú signs the Treaty of Córdoba, which approves a plan to make Mexico an independent constitutional monarchy. In the early 19th century, Napoleon’s occupation of Spain led to the outbreak of revolts all across Spanish America. On September 16, 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launched the Mexican War of Independence with the issuing of his Grito de Dolores, or “Cry of Dolores” (Dolores referring to the town of Dolores, Mexico). The revolutionary tract called for the end of Spanish rule in Mexico, redistribution of land, and racial equality. After some initial successes, Hidalgo was defeated, captured, and executed. However, he was followed by other peasant leaders, such as José María Morelos y Pavón, Mariano Matamoros, and Vicente Guerrero, who all led armies of native and racially mixed revolutionaries against the Spanish and the Royalists.





WORLD WAR I

1914

Poet Alan Seeger volunteers in French army

On August 24, 1914, the American poet Alan Seeger volunteers for service in the French Foreign Legion during the First World War. Born in New York City in 1888, Seeger attended Harvard University, where his illustrious classmates in the Class of 1910 included the poet John Reed and the journalist Walter Lippmann. After living in New York writing poetry and working on the staff of the magazine American, edited by Reed, Seeger moved to Paris in 1912, where he lived on the Left Bank among a set of American expatriates until the outbreak of the First World War in the summer of 1914.





VIETNAM WAR

1969

U.S. unit refuses commander’s order

Company A of the Third Battalion, 196th Light Infantry Brigade refuses the order of its commander, Lieutenant Eugene Schurtz, Jr., to continue an attack that had been launched to reach a downed helicopter shot down in the Que Son valley, 30 miles south of Da Nang.







SPORTS

1875

Captain Webb becomes first person to swim the English Channel

On August 24, 1875, Captain Matthew Webb of Great Britain becomes the first man to successfully swim the English Channel without assistance. After the feat, Webb became an international celebrity, admired for both his prowess in the water and his penchant for risk-taking.





WAR OF 1812

1814

British troops set fire to the White House

On August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812 between the United States and England, British troops enter Washington, D.C. and burn the White House in retaliation for the American attack on the city of York in Ontario, Canada, in June 1813.





WESTWARD EXPANSION

1873

Elusive Mount of the Holy Cross photographed

William Henry Jackson becomes the first person to photograph Colorado’s elusive Mount of the Holy Cross, providing reliable proof of its existence. Rumors had abounded for years that a natural cross of snow lay hidden high in the rugged mountains of Colorado.





CRIME

1981

John Lennon’s killer sentenced

On August 24, 1981, Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life for the murder of John Lennon, a founding member of The Beatles, one of the most successful bands in the history of popular music. On December 8, 1980, Chapman shot and killed the 40-year-old singer, songwriter and peace activist, outside Lennon’s New York City apartment building, the Dakota, where he lived with his wife Yoko Ono and their young son Sean. Lennon, who was born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England, shot to fame in the 1960s with The Beatles, whose multiple best-selling albums and hit films, such as A Hard Day’s Night (1964), turned the group into hugely influential global pop icons. After The Beatles broke up in 1970, Lennon embarked on a successful solo music career, writing and performing such songs as “Imagine” and “(Just Like) Starting Over.” He also directed a 1972 documentary film, also titled Imagine, which was a sometimes-surreal glimpse at a day in the life of Lennon and Ono, set to their music.





CRIME

1982

Wall Street informer, Martin Siegel, hatches insider trading scheme

On August 24, 1982, Martin Siegel meets high-powered stock broker Ivan Boesky at the Harvard Club in New York City to discuss his mounting financial pressures. Boesky offered Siegel, a mergers-and-acquisitions executive, a job, but Siegel, who was looking for some kind of consulting arrangement, declined. Boesky then suggested that if Siegel would supply him with early inside information on upcoming mergers there would be something in it for him. In January 1983, although little information had been exchanged, Boesky sent a courier with a secret code and a briefcase containing $150,000 in $100 bills to be delivered to Siegel at the Plaza Hotel.





COLD WAR

1954

Congress passes Communist Control Act

Congress passes the Communist Control Act in response to the growing anticommunist hysteria in the United States. Though full of ominous language, many found the purpose of the act unclear. In 1954, the Red Scare still raged in the United States. Although Senator Joseph McCarthy, the most famous of the “red hunters” in America, had been disgraced earlier in the summer of 1954 when he tried to prove that communists were in the U.S. Army, most Americans still believed that communists were at work in their country. Responding to this fear, Congress passed the Communist Control Act in August 1954. The act declared that, “The Communist Party of the United States, though purportedly a political party, is in fact an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States.” The act went on to charge that the party’s “role as the agency of a hostile foreign power renders its existence a clear and continuing danger to the security of the United States.” The conclusion seemed inescapable: “The Communist Party should be outlawed.” Indeed, that is what many people at the time believed the Communist Control Act accomplished.

TODAY IN HISTORY




Sacco and Vanzetti executed

Despite worldwide demonstrations in support of their innocence, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for murder on August 23, 1927.

On April 15, 1920, a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, was shot and killed along with his guard. The murderers, who were described as two Italian men, escaped with more than $15,000. After going to a garage to claim a car that police said was connected with the crime, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested and charged with the crime. Although both men carried guns and made false statements upon their arrest, neither had a previous criminal record. On July 14, 1921, they were convicted and sentenced to die.

Anti-radical sentiment was running high in America at the time, and the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was regarded by many as unlawfully sensational. Authorities had failed to come up with any evidence of the stolen money, and much of the other evidence against them was later discredited. During the next few years, sporadic protests were held in Massachusetts and around the world calling for their release, especially after Celestino Madeiros, then under a sentence for murder, confessed in 1925 that he had participated in the crime with the Joe Morelli gang. The state Supreme Court refused to upset the verdict, and Massachusetts Governor Alvan T. Fuller denied the men clemency. In the days leading up to the execution, protests were held in cities around the world, and bombs were set off in New York City and Philadelphia. On August 23, Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted.

In 1961, a test of Sacco’s gun using modern forensic techniques apparently proved it was his gun that killed the guard, though little evidence has been found to substantiate Vanzetti’s guilt. In 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation vindicating Sacco and Vanzetti, stating that they had been treated unjustly and that no stigma should be associated with their names.









PANDEMICS

2021

FDA fully approves the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

On August 23, 2021, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fully approves the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people aged 16 and older, following a manufacturing review and analysis of the company’s expanded clinical trial, which included approximately 44,000 participants and found the vaccine to be 91% effective in preventing COVID-19 disease.





SPORTS

1947

First Little League World Series champion crowned

On August 23, 1947, the first Little League World Series championship game—the culmination of a three-day tournament in Williamsport, Pa.—features teams from Pennsylvania. Before roughly 2,500 fans, Maynard, a team from Williamsport, defeats Lock Haven, 16-7, to win the title at Original Field. Although it is called the "World Series," 11 of the 12 teams in the tournament are from Pennsylvania; the outlier is a team from Atlantic City, N.J..





WORLD WAR II

1945

Marcario García becomes first Mexican national to receive U.S. Medal of Honor

Though he had landed on the beaches of Normandy and been wounded in battle fighting with the U.S. Army, Staff Sergeant Marcario García was not yet a U.S. citizen when President Harry S. Truman awarded him the Medal of Honor on August 23, 1945. García became the first Mexican national to receive the American military's highest honor.







ROARING TWENTIES

1926

Star of the silent-screen Rudolph Valentino dies

The death of silent-screen idol Rudolph Valentino at the age of 31 sends his fans into a hysterical state of mass mourning. In his brief film career, the Italian-born actor established a reputation as the archetypal screen lover.





WORLD WAR II

1939

Germany, Soviet Union sign non-aggression pact

On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, stunning the world, given their diametrically opposed ideologies. But the dictators were, despite appearances, both playing to their own political needs.





SPORTS

1989

Pete Rose gets booted from baseball

On August 23, 1989, as punishment for betting on baseball, Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose accepts a settlement that includes a lifetime ban from the game. A heated debate continues to rage as to whether Rose, a former player who remains the game’s all-time hits leader.







U.S. PRESIDENTS

1814

Dolley Madison saves portrait from British

On this day in 1814, first lady Dolley Madison saves a portrait of George Washington from being looted by British troops during the War of 1812. According to the White House Historical Society and Dolley’s personal letters, President James Madison left the White House on August 22 to meet with his generals on the battlefield, as British troops threatened to enter the capitol. Before leaving, he asked his wife Dolley if she had the “courage or firmness” to wait for his intended return the next day. He asked her to gather important state papers and be prepared to abandon the White House at any moment. The next day, Dolley and a few servants scanned the horizon with spyglasses waiting for either Madison or the British army to show up. As British troops gathered in the distance, Dolley decided to abandon the couple’s personal belongings and save the full-length portrait of former president and national icon George Washington from desecration by vengeful British soldiers, many of whom would have rejoiced in humiliating England’s former colonists.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1970

Lou Reed plays his last show with the Velvet Underground

The most famous and widely quoted observation about rock pioneers the Velvet Underground is generally credited to guitarist Brian Eno, who supposedly said that while only a handful of people bought their albums in their original release, every one of those people was inspired to go out and start his own rock band. To judge from the number of artists over the last four decades whose sound and songwriting reflect the Velvets’ influence, Eno was right on the mark. Arguably the most influential American band of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Velvet Underground had an impact on modern rock and roll that was well out of proportion to the popularity they achieved in their short-lived heyday. That heyday, which included four studio albums still cited as major influences by bands whose members were not even alive at the time of their release, came to an end on August 23, 1970, when lead singer and primary songwriter Lou Reed played his last gig with the Velvet Underground at the famous Manhattan rock club Max’s Kansas City.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

2000

First Survivor finale airs

On August 23, 2000, Richard Hatch, a 39-year-old corporate trainer from Rhode Island, wins the season-one finale of the reality television show Survivor and takes home the promised $1 million prize. In a four-to-three vote by his fellow contestants, Hatch, who was known for walking around naked on the island in Borneo where the show was shot, was named Sole Survivor over the river raft guide Kelly Wiglesworth. Survivor, whose slogan is “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast,” was a huge ratings success and spawned numerous imitators in the reality-competition genre.





1990S

1999

New York City reports first cases of West Nile virus

The first cases of an encephalitis outbreak are reported in New York City on August 23, 1999. Seven people die from what turns out to be the first cases of West Nile virus in the United States. A cluster of eight cases of St. Louis encephalitis was diagnosed among patients in the borough of Queens in New York City in August 1999. The sudden cases of critical brain swelling were found exclusively among the elderly. At about the same time, people noticed an inordinate number of dead crows throughout the city. Other birds, including exotic varieties housed at the Bronx Zoo, were also found dead.





CRIME

2006

Austrian teen escapes after eight years in captivity

Natascha Kampusch, an Austrian teenager who was kidnapped at age 10, escapes from her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, after more than eight years. Shortly after her escape, Priklopil died by suicide. On March 2, 1998, Kampusch was abducted from a street in Vienna while walking to school. One of Austria’s largest missing-person searches followed, during which time authorities checked hundreds of white minivans after a witness reported seeing Kampusch being dragged into a white minivan. Police interviewed Priklopil, the owner of a minivan, but didn’t believe he was a suspect. Kampusch was kept in a secret, windowless basement room at Priklopil’s house outside of Vienna, where she was physically and sexually abused by her captor. As time went by, she was allowed into the rest of the house and would cook and clean for Priklopil. He gave her books and a radio and she managed to educate herself.





CIVIL WAR

1861

Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow is arrested

Allan Pinkerton, head of the new secret service agency of the Federal government, places Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow under house arrest in Washington, D.C. Greenhow was a wealthy widow living in Washington at the outbreak of the war. She was well connected in the capital and was especially close with Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson. The Maryland native was openly committed to the Southern cause, and she soon formed a substantial spy network.





AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1784

State of Franklin declares independence

On August 23, 1784, four counties in western North Carolina declare their independence as the state of Franklin. The counties lay in what would eventually become Tennessee. The previous April, the state of North Carolina had ceded its western land claims between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River to the United States Congress. The settlers in this area, known as the Cumberland River Valley, had formed their own independent government from 1772 to 1777 and were concerned that Congress would sell the territory to Spain or France as a means of paying off some of the government’s war debt. As a result, North Carolina retracted its cession and began to organize an administration for the territory.





WORLD WAR I

1914

Battle of Mons

On August 23, 1914, in their first confrontation on European soil since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, four divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Sir John French, struggle with the German 1st Army over the 60-foot-wide Mons Canal in Belgium, near the French frontier.

TODAY IN HISTORY


Althea Gibson becomes first African American on U.S. tennis tour

On August 22, 1950, officials of the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) accept Althea Gibson into their annual championship at Forest Hills, New York, making her the first African American player to compete in a U.S. national tennis competition.

Growing up in Harlem, the young Gibson was a natural athlete. She started playing tennis at the age of 14 and the very next year won her first tournament, the New York State girls’ championship, sponsored by the American Tennis Association (ATA), which was organized in 1916 by Black players as an alternative to the exclusively white USLTA. After prominent doctors and tennis enthusiasts Hubert Eaton and R. Walter Johnson took Gibson under their wing, she won her first of what would be 10 straight ATA championships in 1947.

In 1949, Gibson attempted to gain entry into the USLTA’s National Grass Court Championships at Forest Hills, the precursor of the U.S. Open. When the USLTA failed to invite her to any qualifying tournaments, Alice Marble—a four-time winner at Forest Hills—wrote a letter on Gibson’s behalf to the editor of American Lawn Tennis magazine. Marble criticized the “bigotry” of her fellow USLTA members, suggesting that if Gibson posed a challenge to current tour players, “it’s only fair that they meet this challenge on the courts.” Gibson was subsequently invited to participate in a New Jersey qualifying event, where she earned a berth at Forest Hills.

On August 28, 1950, Gibson beat Barbara Knapp 6-2, 6-2 in her first USLTA tournament match. She lost a tight match in the second round to Louise Brough, three-time defending Wimbledon champion. Gibson struggled over her first several years on tour but finally won her first major victory in 1956, at the French Open in Paris. She came into her own the following year, winning Wimbledon and the U.S. Open at the relatively advanced age of 30.

Gibson repeated at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open the next year but soon decided to retire from the amateur ranks and go pro. At the time, the pro tennis league was poorly developed, and Gibson at one point went on tour with the Harlem Globetrotters, playing tennis during halftime of their basketball games. In the early 1960s, Gibson became the first Black player to compete on the women’s golf tour, though she never won a tournament. She was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971.

Though she once brushed off comparisons to Jackie Robinson, the trailblazing Black baseball player, Gibson has been credited with paving the way for African American tennis champions such as Arthur Ashe and, more recently, Venus and Serena Williams. After a long illness, she died in 2003 at the age of 76.









SPORTS

1965

Juan Marichal hits catcher with bat, instigating epic MLB brawl

At San Francisco's Candlestick Park on August 22, 1965, Giants pitcher Juan Marichal steps up to the plate to lead off the home half of the third inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers. After the second pitch, a ball low and away, catcher John Roseboro returns the ball to pitcher Sandy Koufax, but he offends Marichal by throwing it close to his head. Marichal’s reaction is unprecedented—he attacks Roseboro, hitting him in the head with his bat and setting off an epic, 14-minute brawl.





CRIME

1922

Michael Collins assassinated

Irish revolutionary and Sinn Fein politician Michael Collins is killed in an ambush in west County Cork, Ireland. In the early part of the century, Collins joined Sinn Fein, an Irish political party dedicated to achieving independence for all Ireland.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1969

Zager and Evans end a six-week run at #1 with their smash-hit “In The Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)"

The American pop-rock duo Zager and Evans end a six-week run at the top of the charts with their ponderously titled single “In The Year 2525." It would be their one and only hit. Zager and Evans never returned to the pop charts after their triumphant debut in the summer of ’69.





19TH CENTURY

1851

U.S. wins first America’s Cup

On August 22, 1851, the U.S.-built schooner America bests a fleet of Britain’s finest ships in a race around England’s Isle of Wight. The ornate silver trophy won by the America was later donated to the New York Yacht Club on condition that it be forever placed in international competition. Today, the “America’s Cup” is the world’s oldest continually contested sporting trophy and represents the pinnacle of international sailing yacht competition.





19TH CENTURY

1864

International Red Cross founded

The Geneva Convention of 1864 for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick of Armies in the Field is adopted by 12 nations meeting in Geneva. The agreement, advocated by Swiss humanitarian Jean-Henri Dunant, called for nonpartisan care to the sick and wounded in times of war and provided for the neutrality of medical personnel. It also proposed the use of an international emblem to mark medical personnel and supplies. In honor of Dunant’s nationality, a red cross on a white background—the Swiss flag in reverse—was chosen. The organization became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross. In 1901, Dunant was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize.





CRIME

1992

Shootings at Ruby Ridge

In the second day of a standoff at Randy Weaver’s remote northern Idaho cabin atop Ruby Ridge, FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi wounds Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris, and then kills Weaver’s wife, Vicki. Randy Weaver, an alleged white supremacist, had been targeted by the federal government for selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns to an undercover Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) informant. On August 21, 1992, after a period of surveillance, U.S. marshals came upon Harris, Weaver, Weaver’s 14-year-old son Sammy and the family dog on a road near the Weaver property. A marshal shot and killed the dog, prompting Sammy to fire at the marshal. In the ensuing gun battle, Sammy and U.S. Marshal William Degan were shot and killed. A tense standoff ensued, and on August 22 the FBI joined the marshals besieging Ruby Ridge.





GREAT BRITAIN

1485

Battle of Bosworth Field

In the last major battle of the War of the Roses, King Richard III is defeated and killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field by Henry Tudor, the earl of Richmond. After the battle, the royal crown, which Richard had worn into the fray, was picked out of a bush and placed on Henry’s head. His crowning as King Henry VII inaugurated the rule of the house of Tudor over England, a dynasty that would last until Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603.





VIETNAM WAR

1972

Demonstrators disrupt Republican National Convention in Miami Beach

Delegates entering the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach are harassed by 3,000 antiwar demonstrators, many painted with death masks. The rest of the convention is marked by demonstrations outside the meeting hall; hundreds of protestors are arrested and many are injured when police use riot-control agents.





SPORTS

1989

Nolan Ryan registers 5,000th strikeout

On August 22, 1989, Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers becomes the first pitcher in major league history to register 5,000 career strikeouts. Ryan would go on to rack up a total of 5,714 strikeouts, over 1,500 more than his closest competition. Lynn Nolan Ryan, Jr. was born January 31, 1947, in Refugio, Texas and raised in Alvin, southeast of Houston. As a high school sophomore, he was scouted by Red Murff of the New York Mets. Ryan’s coach regaled Murff with tales of the young pitcher’s intimidating fastballs, so powerful they had broken catchers’ bones. Murff was impressed–his report said Ryan had the “best arm I’ve ever seen in my life.”





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1935

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx is born

Annie Proulx, author of celebrated books and stories including The Shipping News and "Brokeback Mountain," is born on August 22, 1935 in Norwich, Connecticut. Her mother was a painter and her father a self-made executive in a textile company. Annie lived in various towns in New England and in North Carolina during her childhood, and wrote her first short story at age 10, when she was home sick with the chicken pox. In college, she majored in history and later worked toward a doctorate, but eventually abandoned academia to make her living writing magazine articles and how-to books for nearly 20 years. She married and divorced three times, raised three sons as a single mother, and still found time to write and publish a few short stories every year.





CRIME

1933

The Barker clan kills an officer in their fruitless robbery

The notorious Barker gang robs a Federal Reserve mail truck in Chicago, Illinois, and kills Officer Miles Cunningham. Netting only a bunch of worthless checks, the Barkers soon returned to a crime with which they had more success—kidnapping. A few months later, the Barkers kidnapped wealthy banker Edward Bremer, demanding $200,000 in ransom.





COLD WAR

1968

Czechs protest against Soviet invasion

In the streets of Prague and in the United Nations headquarters in New York City, Czechs protest against the Soviet invasion of their nation. The protests served to highlight the brutality of the Soviet action and to rally worldwide condemnation of the Soviet Union.





CIVIL WAR

1862

President Lincoln replies to Horace Greeley

President Abraham Lincoln writes a carefully worded letter in response to an abolitionist editorial by Horace Greeley, the editor of the influential New York Tribune, and hints at a change in his policy concerning slavery. From the outset of the Civil War, Lincoln proclaimed the war’s goal to be the reunion of the nation. He said little about slavery for fear of alienating key constituencies such as the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and, to a lesser extent, Delaware. Each of these states allowed slavery but had not seceded from the Union. Lincoln was also concerned about Northern Democrats, who generally opposed fighting the war to free the enslaved people but whose support Lincoln needed.





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1962

Citroen helps de Gaulle survive assassination attempt

On August 22, 1962, President Charles de Gaulle of France survives one of several assassination attempts against him thanks to the superior performance of the presidential automobile: The sleek, aerodynamic Citroen DS 19, known as “La Deesse” (The Goddess). When the Citroen DS made its sensational debut at the 1955 Paris Motor Show, its streamlined, understated form stood out among the tail-finned and chrome-covered cars popular in that era. A far cry from Citroen’s famous 2CV (dubbed the “ugly duckling”), the DS had a 1.9-liter engine and power-assisted gearshift, clutch, steering and brake systems. Its crowning aspect, however, was a hydropneumatic suspension system that Citroen would become known for, which automatically adjusted the height of the car to keep it level and enable the driver to maintain control more easily. Citroen took 12,000 orders for the DS by the end of that first day, and it soon became known as the preferred mode of transportation among France’s wealthy and most powerful citizens.





AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1776

Redcoats land at Long Island

On August 22, 1776, the British arrive at Long Island, between Gravesend and New Utrecht, with “near twenty four thousand men ready to land in a moment,” according to one observer. General William Howe’s large army came to Long Island hoping to capture New York City and gain control of the Hudson River, a victory that would divide the rebellious colonies in half. Five days later, on August 27, the Redcoats marched against the Patriot position at Brooklyn Heights, overcoming the Americans at Gowanus Pass and then outflanking the entire Continental Army. The Americans suffered 1,000 casualties to the British loss of only 400 men during the fighting. Howe chose not to follow the advice of his subordinates, however, and did not storm the Patriot redoubts at Brooklyn Heights, where he could have taken the Patriots’ military leadership prisoner and ended the rebellion.





WORLD WAR II

1944

Romania occupied by Soviet troops

On August 22, 1944, Soviet forces break through to Jassy, in northeastern Romania, convincing Romania’s king to sign an armistice with the Allies and concede control of his country to the USSR. As early as 1937, Romania had come under control of a fascist government that bore great resemblance to that of Germany’s, including similar anti-Jewish laws. Romania’s king, Carol II, dissolved the government a year later, but was unable to suppress the fascist Iron Guard paramilitary organization.

TODAY IN HISTORY


Hawaii becomes 50th state

The modern United States receives its crowning star when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a proclamation admitting Hawaii into the Union as the 50th state. The president also issued an order for an American flag featuring 50 stars arranged in staggered rows: five six-star rows and four five-star rows. The new flag became official July 4, 1960.

The first known settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesian voyagers who arrived sometime in the eighth century. In the early 18th century, American traders came to Hawaii to exploit the islands’ sandalwood, which was much valued in China at the time. In the 1830s, the sugar industry was introduced to Hawaii and by the mid 19th century had become well established. American missionaries and planters occupied the islands and brought about massive changes in Hawaiian political, cultural, economic and religious life. In 1840, a constitutional monarchy was established, stripping the Hawaiian monarch of much of his authority.

In 1893, a group of American expatriates and sugar planters supported by a division of U.S. Marines deposed Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii. One year later, the Republic of Hawaii was established as a U.S. protectorate with Hawaiian-born Sanford B. Dole as president. Many in Congress opposed the formal annexation of Hawaii, and it was not until 1898, following the use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the Spanish-American War, that Hawaii’s strategic importance became evident and formal annexation was approved. Two years later, Hawaii was organized into a formal U.S. territory. During World War II, Hawaii became firmly ensconced in the American national identity following the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.









1980S

1980

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is founded

On August 21, 1980, animal rights advocates Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco found People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Rising from humble beginnings, PETA will soon become the world’s foremost and most controversial animal rights organization.





US GOVERNMENT

1974

The Equal Educational Opportunities Act takes effect

The Equal Educational Opportunities Act takes effect on August 21, 1974. The new law addressed civil rights issues in education, barring states from discriminating against students based on gender, race, color, or nationality and requiring public schools to provide for students who do not speak English.





AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1754

Bloody Ban Tarleton born in Britain

On August 21, 1754, Banastre Tarleton is born as the fourth child of John Tarleton, the former lord mayor of Liverpool, and a money lender, merchant and slave trader. After completing his education at Oxford, Tarleton became the most feared officer in the British army during the War for American Independence, memorialized in portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, as well as on film in The Patriot (2000), starring Mel Gibson, as the basis for the character Colonel William Tavington. The treatment of Patriot prisoners by Tarleton and his Loyalist troops in the Southern Campaign led to the coining of a phrase that came to define British brutality during of the last years of the War for Independence: “Tarleton’s Quarter.”





AFRICA

1961

Jomo Kenyatta, Kenyan independence leader, is freed from prison

Jomo Kenyatta, leader of the Kenyan independence movement, is released by British colonial authorities after nearly nine years of imprisonment and detention. Two years later, Kenya achieved independence and Kenyatta became prime minister. Once portrayed as a menacing symbol of African nationalism, he brought stability to the country and defended Western interests during his 15 years as Kenyan leader.





SLAVERY

1831

Nat Turner launches massive insurrection in Virginia

Believing himself chosen by God to lead his people out of slavery, Nat Turner launches the largest ever insurrection by enslaved people in the United States. Turner, an enslaved man and educated minister, planned to capture Virginia's Southampton county armory and then march 30 miles to Dismal Swamp, where his rebels would be able to elude their pursuers. With seven followers, he killed Joseph Travis, his owner, and Travis’ family, and then set off across the countryside, hoping to rally hundreds of enslaved people to his insurrection en route to the armory.





US POLITICS

1858

Lincoln-Douglas debates begin

Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Abraham Lincoln, a Kentucky-born lawyer and one-time U.S. representative from Illinois, begin a series of famous public encounters on the issue of slavery. The two politicians, the former a Northern Democrat and the latter a Republican, were competing for Douglas’ U.S. Senate seat. In the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates—all about three hours along—Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery while Douglas maintained that each territory should have the right to decide whether it would become free or allow slavery. Lincoln lost the Senate race, but his campaign brought national attention to the young Republican Party.







VIETNAM WAR

1971

Antiwar protestors raid draft offices

Antiwar protestors associated with the Catholic Left raid draft offices in Buffalo, New York, and Camden, New Jersey, to confiscate and destroy draft records. The FBI and local police arrested 25 protestors. .





SPORTS

2004

Michael Phelps wins eighth medal

On August 21, 2004, American swimmer Michael Phelps wins his eighth medal of the 2004 Athens Olympics in spite of sitting out his eighth scheduled event, the final of the 4 x 100-meter medley relay. Phelps left Athens with six gold and two bronze medals.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1920

Christopher Robin’s birthday

Daphne Milne, wife of writer A.A. Milne, gives birth to a son, who the couple name Christopher Robin Milne on August 21, 1920. Christopher Robin will be immortalized in A.A. Milne’s books Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. A.A. Milne was born in London in 1882, the youngest of three sons. His parents were both schoolteachers; his father was headmaster at a school where H.G. Wells taught. His family claimed Milne taught himself to read at age two. He began writing humorous pieces as a schoolboy and continued at Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate paper. In 1903, he left Cambridge and went to London to write. Although he was broke by the end of his first year, he persevered and supported himself until 1906 with his writing. That year, he joined humor magazine Punch as an editor and wrote humorous verse and essays for the magazine for eight years, until World War I broke out. While at Punch, he wrote his first book-for adults, not children.





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

1986

Gas cloud kills Cameroon villagers

An eruption of lethal gas from Lake Nyos in Cameroon kills nearly 2,000 people and wipes out four villages on August 21, 1986. Carbon dioxide, though ubiquitous in Earth’s atmosphere, can be deadly in large quantities, as was evident in this disaster.





CRIME

1911

Theft of "Mona Lisa" is discovered

An amateur painter sets up his easel near Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, only to discover that the masterpiece is missing. Earlier in the day, in perhaps the most brazen art theft of all time, Vincenzo Perugia had walked into the Louvre, removed the famed painting from the wall, hid it beneath his clothes, and escaped. While the entire nation of France was stunned, theories abounded as to what could have happened to the invaluable artwork. Most believed that professional thieves could not have been involved because they would have realized that it would be too dangerous to try to sell the world’s most famous painting. A popular rumor in Paris was that the Germans had stolen it to humiliate the French.





COLD WAR

1991

Attempted coup against Gorbachev collapses

Just three days after it began, the coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev collapses. Despite his success in avoiding removal from office, Gorbachev’s days in power were numbered. The Soviet Union would soon cease to exist as a nation and as a Cold War threat to the United States.





CIVIL WAR

1863

Guerillas massacre residents of Lawrence, Kansas

The vicious guerilla war in Missouri spills over into Kansas and precipitates one of the most appalling acts of violence during the war when 150 men in the abolitionist town of Lawrence are murdered in a raid by Southern partisans. The Civil War took a very different form in Kansas and Missouri than it did throughout the rest of the nation. There were few regular armies operating there; instead, partisan bands attacked civilians and each other. The roots of conflict in the region dated back to 1854, when the Kansas-Missouri border became ground zero for tension over slavery. While residents of Kansas Territory were trying to decide the issue of slavery, bands from Missouri, a slave state, began attacking abolitionist settlements in the territory. Abolitionists reacted with equal vigor.





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1897

Olds Motor Works founded

Ransom Eli Olds of Lansing, Michigan, founds Olds Motors Works—which will later become Oldsmobile—on August 21, 1897. Born in Geneva, Ohio, in 1864, Olds went to work for his family’s machine-repair and engine-building business in 1883.





WORLD WAR II

1944

The seeds of the United Nations are planted

On August 21, 1944, representatives from the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China meet in the Dumbarton Oaks estate at Georgetown, Washington, D.C., to formulate the formal principles of an organization that will provide collective security on a worldwide basis—an organization that will become the United Nations.

TODAY IN HISTORY


First race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

On August 19, 1909, the first race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, now the home of the world’s most famous motor racing competition, the Indianapolis 500.

Built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana, the speedway was started by local businessmen as a testing facility for Indiana’s growing automobile industry. The idea was that occasional races at the track would pit cars from different manufacturers against each other. After seeing what these cars could do, spectators would presumably head down to the showroom of their choice to get a closer look.

The rectangular two-and-a-half-mile track linked four turns, each exactly 440 yards from start to finish, by two long and two short straight sections. In that first five-mile race on August 19, 1909, 12,000 spectators watched Austrian engineer Louis Schwitzer win with an average speed of 57.4 miles per hour. The track’s surface of crushed rock and tar proved a disaster, breaking up in a number of places and causing the deaths of two drivers, two mechanics and two spectators.

The surface was soon replaced with 3.2 million paving bricks, laid in a bed of sand and fixed with mortar. Dubbed “The Brickyard,” the speedway reopened in December 1909. In 1911, low attendance led the track’s owners to make a crucial decision: Instead of shorter races, they resolved to focus on a single, longer event each year, for a much larger prize. That May 30 marked the debut of the Indy 500–a grueling 500-mile race that was an immediate hit with audiences and drew press attention from all over the country. Driver Ray Haroun won the purse of $14,250, with an average speed of 74.59 mph and a total time of 6 hours and 42 minutes.

Since 1911, the Indianapolis 500 has been held every year, with the exception of 1917-18 and 1942-45, when the United States was involved in the two world wars. With an average crowd of 400,000, the Indy 500 is the best-attended event in U.S. sports. In 1936, asphalt was used for the first time to cover the rougher parts of the track, and by 1941 most of the track was paved. The last of the speedway’s original bricks were covered in 1961, except for a three-foot line of bricks left exposed at the start-finish line as a nostalgic reminder of the track’s history.









EARLY US

1791

Benjamin Banneker writes to Thomas Jefferson, urging justice for African Americans

On August 19, 1791, the accomplished American mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker pens a letter to then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson corresponds prolifically with luminaries from around the world, but Banneker is unique among them: the son of a free Black American woman and a formerly enslaved African man from Guinea, Banneker criticizes Jefferson’s hypocritical stance on slavery in respectful but unambiguous terms, using Jefferson’s own words to make his case for the abolition of slavery.





CRIME

2011

“West Memphis Three” released from prison after 18 years

On August 19, 2011, three men, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, who were convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the murders of three boys in Arkansas, are released from prison in a special legal deal allowing them to maintain their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to convict them. Echols, 36, had been on death row, while Baldwin, 34, and Misskelley, 36, were serving life sentences. Collectively known as the “West Memphis Three,” the men had always maintained their innocence, and questions about the evidence used to convict them had persisted for years. Their case attracted widespread attention and the support of a number of celebrities.





U.S. PRESIDENTS

1946

Bill Clinton is born

On August 19, 1946, William Jefferson Blythe III is born in Hope, Arkansas. His father died in a car accident before he was born, and young Bill later took the last name of his stepfather, Roger Clinton. In 1992, Bill Clinton would be elected as the 42nd president of the United States.





WAR OF 1812

1812

Old Ironsides earns its name

During the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution defeats the British frigate Guerrière in a furious engagement off the coast of Nova Scotia. Witnesses claimed that the British shot merely bounced off the Constitution‘s sides, as if the ship were made of iron rather than wood. By the war’s end, “Old Ironsides” destroyed or captured seven more British ships. The success of the USS Constitution against the supposedly invincible Royal Navy provided a tremendous boost in morale for the young American republic.





COLD WAR

1960

Captured U.S. spy pilot sentenced in Russia

In the USSR, captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for his confessed espionage. On May 1, 1960, Powers took off from Pakistan at the controls of an ultra-sophisticated Lockheed U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft.





WORLD WAR I

1919

President Wilson appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

On August 19, 1919, in a break with conventional practice, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson appears personally before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to argue in favor of its ratification of the Versailles Treaty, the peace settlement that ended the First World War.





WESTWARD EXPANSION

1895

John Wesley Hardin killed in Texas

John Wesley Hardin, one of the bloodiest killers of the Old West, is murdered by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas. Born in central Texas on May 26, 1853, Hardin killed his first man when he was only 15 during the violent period of post-Civil War Reconstruction.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1964

The Beatles kick off first U.S. tour at San Francisco’s Cow Palace

The Beatles took America by storm during their famous first visit, wowing the millions who watched them during their historic television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. But after the first great rush of stateside Beatlemania, the Beatles promptly returned to Europe, leaving their American fans to make do with mere records. By late summer of that same year, however, having put on an unprecedented and still unmatched display of pop-chart dominance during their absence, the Beatles finally returned. On August 19, 1964, more than six months after taking the East Coast by storm, the Fab Four traveled to California to take the stage at the Cow Palace in San Francisco for opening night of their first-ever concert tour of North America.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1993

Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin marry

The actors Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin marry in East Hampton, New York on August 19, 1993. The Hollywood power couple reportedly became involved on the set of the romantic comedy The Marrying Man (1991), in which they played lovers.





CRIME

1991

A Jewish youth is killed by a mob

Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting student from Australia, is stabbed to death by a mob in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. The crowd, consisting of young Black men, had been intent on seeking revenge for the death of seven-year-old Gavin Cato, who had been struck by a Hasidic Jew three hours earlier. Following Rosenbaum’s murder, violence continued for four days in Crown Heights, while many complained that the response by police and Mayor David Dinkins was inadequate.





COLD WAR

1953

CIA-assisted coup overthrows government of Iran

The Iranian military, with the support and financial assistance of the United States government, overthrows the government of Premier Mohammad Mosaddeq and reinstates the Shah of Iran. Iran remained a solid Cold War ally of the United States until a revolution ended the Shah’s rule in 1979.





WORLD WAR II

1934

Adolf Hitler becomes president of Germany

On August 19, 1934, Adolf Hitler, already chancellor, is also elected president of Germany in an unprecedented consolidation of power in the short history of the republic. In 1932, German President Paul von Hindenburg, old, tired, and a bit senile, had won re-election as president but had lost a considerable portion of his right/conservative support to the Nazi Party. Those close to the president wanted a cozier relationship to Hitler and the Nazis. Hindenburg had contempt for the Nazis’ lawlessness but ultimately agreed to oust his chancellor, Heinrich Bruning, for Franz von Papen, who was willing to appease the Nazis by lifting the ban on Hitler’s Brown Shirts and unilaterally canceling Germany’s reparation payments, imposed by the Treaty of Versailles at the close of World War I.

TODAY IN HISTORY


Soviet hard-liners launch coup against Gorbachev

On August 18, 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest during a coup by high-ranking members of his own government, military and police forces.

Since becoming leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1988, Gorbachev had pursued comprehensive reforms of the Soviet system. Combining perestroika (“restructuring”) of the economy—including a greater emphasis on free-market policies—and glasnost (“openness”) in diplomacy, he greatly improved Soviet relations with Western democracies, particularly the United States. Meanwhile, though, within the USSR, Gorbachev faced powerful critics, including conservative, hard-line politicians and military officials who thought he was driving the Soviet Union toward its downfall and making it a second-rate power. On the other side were even more radical reformers–particularly Boris Yeltsin, president of the most powerful socialist republic, Russia–who complained that Gorbachev was just not working fast enough.

The August 1991 coup was carried out by the hard-line elements within Gorbachev’s own administration, as well as the heads of the Soviet army and the KGB, or secret police. Detained at his vacation villa in the Crimea, he was placed under house arrest and pressured to give his resignation, which he refused to do. Claiming Gorbachev was ill, the coup leaders, headed by former vice president Gennady Yanayev, declared a state of emergency and attempted to take control of the government.

Yeltsin and his backers from the Russian parliament then stepped in, calling on the Russian people to strike and protest the coup. When soldiers tried to arrest Yeltsin, they found the way to the parliamentary building blocked by armed and unarmed civilians. Yeltsin himself climbed aboard a tank and spoke through a megaphone, urging the troops not to turn against the people and condemning the coup as a “new reign of terror.” The soldiers backed off, some of them choosing to join the resistance. After thousands took the streets to demonstrate, the coup collapsed after only three days.

Gorbachev was released and flown to Moscow, but his regime had been dealt a deadly blow. Over the next few months, he dissolved the Communist Party, granted independence to the Baltic states, and proposed a looser, more economics-based federation among the remaining republics. In December 1991, Gorbachev resigned. Yeltsin capitalized on his defeat of the coup, emerging from the rubble of the former Soviet Union as the most powerful figure in Moscow and the leader of the newly formed Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).









WOMEN’S HISTORY

1920

19th Amendment ratified thanks to one vote

A dramatic battle in the Tennessee House of Representatives ends with the state ratifying the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution on August 18, 1920. After decades of struggle and protest by suffragettes across the country, the decisive vote is cast by a 24-year-old representative who reputedly changed his vote after receiving a note from his mother.





ANCIENT CHINA

1227

Genghis Khan dies

Genghis Khan, the Mongol leader who forged an empire stretching from the east coast of China west to the Aral Sea, dies in camp during a campaign against the Chinese kingdom of Xi Xia. The great Khan, who was over 60 and in failing health, may have succumbed to injuries incurred during a fall from a horse in the previous year.





COLONIAL AMERICA

1590

Roanoke Colony deserted

John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returns from a supply-trip to England to find the settlement deserted. White and his men found no trace of the 100 or so colonists he left behind, and there was no sign of violence.





WORLD WAR II

1941

Hitler suspends euthanasia program

Adolf Hitler orders that the systematic murder of the mentally ill and handicapped be brought to an end because of protests within Germany on August 18, 1941. In 1939, Dr. Viktor Brack, head of Hitler’s Euthanasia Department, oversaw the creation of the T.4 program, which began as the systematic killing of children deemed “mentally defective.” Children were transported from all over Germany to a Special Psychiatric Youth Department and killed. Later, certain criteria were established for non-Jewish children. They had to be “certified” mentally ill, schizophrenic, or incapable of working for one reason or another. Jewish children already in mental hospitals, whatever the reason or whatever the prognosis, were automatically to be subject to the program. The victims were either injected with lethal substances or were led to “showers” where the children sat as gas flooded the room through water pipes. The program was then expanded to adults.





SPORTS

1992

Boston Celtics forward Larry Bird hangs it up

On August 18, 1992, celebrated Boston Celtics forward Larry Bird retires. Bird was a high school basketball star in his native Indiana. After graduation, he received a scholarship to play for legendary coach Bobby Knight at Indiana University, one of the finest teams in the spotlight in Bloomington and left the school after one month. He returned to French Lick, his hometown, and eventually enrolled at the smaller Indiana State, far from a basketball powerhouse. There, Bird was a one-man offense, averaging 30 points per game as a sophomore, junior and senior. He led the Sycamores to an undefeated record in his senior season (1978-79) before losing to Earvin “Magic” Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans in the most viewed NCAA title game ever.





U.S. PRESIDENTS

1795

George Washington signs Jay Treaty with Britain

On August 18, 1795, President George Washington signs the Jay (or “Jay’s”) Treaty with Great Britain. This treaty, known officially as the “Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty; and The United States of America” attempted to diffuse the tensions between England and the United States that had risen to renewed heights since the end of the Revolutionary War. The U.S. government objected to English military posts along America’s northern and western borders and Britain’s violation of American neutrality in 1794 when the Royal Navy seized American ships in the West Indies during England’s war with France. The treaty, written and negotiated by Supreme Court Chief Justice (and Washington appointee) John Jay, was signed by Britain’s King George III on November 19, 1794 in London. However, after Jay returned home with news of the treaty’s signing, Washington, now in his second term, encountered fierce Congressional opposition to the treaty; by 1795, its ratification was uncertain.







ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1958

Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” is published in the U.S.

Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita is published in the U.S. on August 18, 1958. The novel, about a man’s obsession with a 12-year-old girl, had been rejected by four publishers before G.P. Putnam’s Sons accepted it. The novel became a bestseller that allowed Nabokov to retire from his career as college professor.





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

1931

Yangtze River peaks in China

On August 18, 1931, the Yangtze River in China peaks during a horrible flood that kills 3.7 million people directly and indirectly over the next several months. This was perhaps the worst natural disaster of the 20th century. The Yangtze River runs through southern China, one one of the most populated areas on Earth. The region’s people, most of whom lived at subsistence level, depended on the river for water for their personal and farming needs. In April, the river-basin area received far-above-average rainfall. When torrential rains came again in July, the stage was set for disaster. The Yangtze flooded over a 500-square-mile area. The rising waters drove 500,000 people from their homes by the beginning of August.





CRIME

1988

A Seattle judge involved in a sex scandal dies by suicide

The Honorable Gary M. Little shoots himself just hours before the Seattle Post-Intelligencer releases an article accusing him of abusing his power by sexually exploiting juvenile defendants who appeared before him. The front-page article also suggested that he had exploited his

TODAY IN HISTORY


Woodstock festival opens in Bethel, New York

On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock music festival opens on a patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel.

Promoters John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang originally envisioned the festival as a way to raise funds to build a recording studio and rock-and-roll retreat near the town of Woodstock, New York. The longtime artists’ colony was already a home base for Bob Dylan and other musicians. Despite their relative inexperience, the young promoters managed to sign a roster of top acts, including the Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many more.

Plans for the festival were on the verge of foundering, however, after both Woodstock and the nearby town of Wallkill denied permission to hold the event. Dairy farmer Max Yasgur came to the rescue at the last minute, giving the promoters access to his 600 acres of land in Bethel, some 50 miles from Woodstock.

Early estimates of attendance increased from 50,000 to around 200,000, but by the time the gates opened on Friday, August 15, more than 400,000 people were clamoring to get in. Those without tickets simply walked through gaps in the fences, and the organizers were eventually forced to make the event free of charge. Folk singer and guitarist Richie Havens kicked off the event with a long set, and Joan Baez and Arlo Guthrie also performed on Friday night.

Though Woodstock had left its promoters nearly bankrupt, their ownership of the film and recording rights more than compensated for the losses after the release of a hit documentary film in 1970. Later music festivals inspired by Woodstock’s success failed to live up to its standard, and the festival still stands for many as an example of America’s 1960s youth counterculture at its best.









AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1780

“Swamp Fox” routs loyalists while Gates’ men fall ill

On August 15, 1780, American Lieutenant Colonel Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” and his irregular cavalry force of 250 rout a party of Loyalists commanded by Major Micajah Gainey at Port’s Ferry, South Carolina. Meanwhile, General Horatio Gates’ men consumed half-baked bread, which sickened them overnight and contributed to their disastrous performance at the Battle of Camden, also in South Carolina, the following day.





GREAT BRITAIN

1057

King Macbeth is killed by Malcolm Canmore

At the Battle of Lumphanan, King Macbeth of Scotland is slain by Malcolm Canmore, whose father, King Duncan I, was murdered by Macbeth 17 years earlier. Macbeth was a grandson of King Kenneth II and also had a claim to the throne through his wife, Gruoch, who was the granddaughter of Kenneth III–the Scottish king who had been overthrown by Duncan’s predecessor King Malcolm II. Under King Duncan, Macbeth was governor of the Scottish province of Moray and a trusted military commander. However, he opposed Duncan’s ties to the Saxons in the South, and he rose in rebellion. On August 14, 1040, Macbeth killed Duncan in a battle near Elgin, and he was crowned king of Scotland in his place.





COLD WAR

1961

Berlin Wall built

Two days after sealing off free passage between East and West Berlin with barbed wire, East German authorities begin building a wall—the Berlin Wall—to permanently close off access to the West. For the next 28 years, the heavily fortified Berlin Wall stood as the most tangible symbol of the Cold War—a literal “iron curtain” dividing Europe.





LANDMARKS

1914

Panama Canal open to traffic

The American-built waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship. The rush of settlers to California and Oregon in the mid 19th century was the initial impetus of the U.S. desire to build an artificial waterway across Central America. In 1855, the United States completed a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama (then part of Colombia), prompting various parties to propose canal-building plans. Ultimately, Colombia awarded rights to build the canal to Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French entrepreneur who had completed the Suez Canal in 1869. Construction on a sea-level canal began in 1881, but inadequate planning, disease among the workers, and financial problems drove Lesseps’ company into bankruptcy in 1889. Three years later, Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, a former chief engineer of the canal works and a French citizen, acquired the assets of the defunct French company.





MIDDLE EAST

1947

India and Pakistan win independence

The Indian Independence Bill, which carves the independent nations of India and Pakistan out of the former Mogul Empire, comes into force at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947. The long-awaited agreement ended 200 years of British rule and was hailed by Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi as the “noblest act of the British nation.” However, religious strife between Hindus and Muslims, which had delayed Britain’s granting of Indian independence after World War II, soon marred Gandhi’s exhilaration. In the northern province of Punjab, which was sharply divided between Hindu-dominated India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan, hundreds of people were killed in the first few days after independence.





WORLD WAR II

1945

Emperor Hirohito announces Japan’s surrender

Emperor Hirohito broadcasts the news of Japan’s surrender to the Japanese people on August 15, 1945 (August 14 in the West because of time-zone differences). Although Tokyo had already communicated to the Allies its acceptance of the surrender terms of the Potsdam Conference several days earlier, and a Japanese news service announcement had been made to that effect, the Japanese people were still waiting to hear an authoritative voice speak the unspeakable: that Japan had been defeated.







WORLD WAR I

1914

Japan gives ultimatum to Germany

On August 15, 1914, the government of Japan sends an ultimatum to Germany, demanding the removal of all German ships from Japanese and Chinese waters and the surrender of control of Tsingtao—the location of Germany’s largest overseas naval bases, located on China’s Shantung Peninsula—to Japan by noon on August 23.





VIETNAM WAR

1968

Heavy fighting erupts in and around the DMZ

Heavy fighting intensifies in and around the DMZ, as South Vietnamese and U.S. troops engage a North Vietnamese battalion. In a seven and a half hour battle, 165 enemy troops were killed. At the same time, U.S. Marines attacked three strategic positions just south of the DMZ, killing 56 North Vietnamese soldiers.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1979

"Apocalypse Now" released in theaters

Apocalypse Now, the acclaimed Vietnam War film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, opens in theaters around the United States on August 15, 1979. The film, inspired in part by Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness, among other sources, told the story of an Army captain (played by Martin Sheen) and crew of men who are sent into the Cambodian jungle to kill a U.S. Special Forces colonel (Marlon Brando) who has gone AWOL and is thought to be crazy. Apocalypse Now, which co-starred Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper, became notorious for its long, difficult production, which included budget problems, shooting delays due to bad weather on the Philippines set, a heart attack for Sheen and a nervous breakdown for Coppola. Despite the production hurdles, the film became a commercial success and won two Academy Awards (Best Cinematography and Best Sound); it received six other Oscar nominations, including Best Director, Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (Duvall). The film included such memorable lines as “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” and “The horror…the horror!”





CRIME

2006

Wife of slain minister released from jail

Mary Winkler, who confessed to fatally shooting her pastor husband Matthew Winkler in his sleep at their church parsonage in Selmer, Tennessee, is released from jail on $750,000 bail. Winkler was later convicted in his killing, but served only a short time in prison.





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1899

Henry Ford leaves Edison to start automobile company

On August 15, 1899, in Detroit, Michigan, Henry Ford resigns his position as chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company’s main plant in order to concentrate on automobile production. Henry Ford left his family’s farm in Dearborn, Michigan, at age 16 to work in the machine shops of Detroit. In 1888, he married Clara Bryant, and they had a son, Edsel, in 1893. That same year, Ford was made chief engineer at Edison. Charged with keeping the city’s electricity flowing, Ford was on call 24 hours a day, with no regular working hours, and when not working could tinker away at his real goal of building a gasoline-powered vehicle. He completed his first functioning gasoline engine at the end of 1893, his first horseless carriage, called the Quadricycle, by 1896.

TODAY IN HISTORY


Japan’s surrender made public

In what later became known as Victory Day, an official announcement of Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allies is made public to the world on August 14, 1945. (Because of time-zone differences, it was August 15 in Japan.) Japan formally surrendered in writing two weeks later, on September 2, 1945.

Even though Japan’s War Council, urged by Emperor Hirohito, had already submitted a declaration of surrender to the Allies, via ambassadors, on August 10, fighting continued between the Japanese and the Soviets in Manchuria and between the Japanese and the United States in the South Pacific. In fact, two days after the Council agreed to surrender, a Japanese submarine attacked the Oak Hill, an American landing ship, and the Thomas F. Nickel, an American destroyer, both east of Okinawa.

On the afternoon of August 14, Japanese radio announced that an Imperial Proclamation was soon to be made, accepting the terms of unconditional surrender drawn up at the Potsdam Conference. That proclamation had already been recorded by the emperor. The news did not go over well, as more than 1,000 Japanese soldiers stormed the Imperial Palace in an attempt to find the proclamation and prevent its being transmitted to the Allies. Soldiers still loyal to Emperor Hirohito repulsed the attackers.

That evening, General Anami, the member of the War Council most adamant against surrender, committed suicide. His reason: to atone for the Japanese army’s defeat, and to be spared having to hear his emperor speak the words of surrender.

At the White House, U.S. president Harry S. Truman relayed the news to the American people; celebrations broke out in Washington, D.C. and across the country.









EXPLORATION

1784

Russians settle Alaska

On Kodiak Island, Grigory Shelikhov, a Russian fur trader, founds Three Saints Bay, the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska. The European discovery of Alaska came in 1741, when a Russian expedition led by Danish navigator Vitus Bering sighted the Alaskan mainland.







21ST CENTURY

2003

Blackout hits Northeast United States

A major outage knocked out power across the eastern United States and parts of Canada on August 14, 2003. Beginning at 4:10 p.m. ET, 21 power plants shut down in just three minutes. Fifty million people were affected, including residents of New York, Cleveland and Detroit, as well as Toronto and Ottawa, Canada. Although power companies were able to resume some service in as little as two hours, power remained off in other places for more than a day. The outage stopped trains and elevators, and disrupted everything from cellular telephone service to operations at hospitals to traffic at airports. In New York City, it took more than two hours for passengers to be evacuated from stalled subway trains. Small business owners were affected when they lost expensive refrigerated stock. The loss of use of electric water pumps interrupted water service in many areas. There were even some reports of people being stranded mid-ride on amusement park roller coasters. At the New York Stock Exchange and bond market, though, trading was able to continue thanks to backup generators.





SPORTS

1971

Pitching ace Bob Gibson throws first no-hitter

On August 14, 1971, St. Louis Cardinals ace Bob Gibson throws the first no-hitter of his storied career. Gibson’s heroics helped his team sail to an 11-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Gibson overcame numerous childhood ailments—including rickets, asthma and a heart murmur—to earn a basketball scholarship to Creighton University after high school. His basketball skills were so impressive that in 1957 he spent a year playing for the Harlem Globetrotters, an exhibition team devoted to combining humor and basketball tricks, that was comprised of world-class players like Meadowlark Lemon and, for a time, Wilt Chamberlain. Despite the good pay, Gibson soon became frustrated with the team’s emphasis on comedic showmanship, and decided to switch sports. Prior to the 1958 season, Gibson signed as a pitcher with baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals, and after a year in the minors, was promoted to the major leagues. By 1962, he was one of the team’s most accomplished starters, and he soon established himself as one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball history.





U.S. PRESIDENTS

1935

FDR signs Social Security Act

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935. Press photographers snapped pictures as FDR, flanked by ranking members of Congress, signed into law the historic act, which guaranteed an income for the unemployed and retirees.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1985

Michael Jackson takes control of the Beatles’ publishing rights

It was during their collaboration on 1983’s “Say Say Say” that former Beatle Paul McCartney is said to have advised King of Pop Michael Jackson to invest some of his enormous wealth in music publishing. It was sound financial advice that McCartney may have come to regret giving on August 14, 1985, when Michael Jackson purchased the publishing rights to the vast majority of the Beatles’ catalog for $47 million, outbidding McCartney himself.





CRIME

1994

The terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal is captured

Terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanchez, long known as Carlos the Jackal, is captured in Khartoum, Sudan, by French intelligence agents. Since there was no extradition treaty with Sudan, the French agents sedated and kidnapped Carlos. The Sudanese government, claiming that it had assisted in the arrest, requested that the United States remove their country from its list of nations that sponsor terrorism.







CRIME

1751

A daughter poisons her father

Francis Blandy falls into a coma and dies in his home outside London, England. Later that night, Blandy’s daughter Mary offered one of the family’s servants a large sum of money to help her get to France immediately. Mary was forced to flee on her own when he refused, but she was chased down and caught by neighbors who had heard that Blandy had been poisoned.





WORLD WAR I

1917

China declares war on Germany

On August 14, 1917, as World War I enters its fourth year, China abandons its neutrality and declares war on Germany. From its inception, the Great War was by no means confined to the European continent; in the Far East, two rival nations, Japan and China, sought to find their own role in the great conflict. The ambitious Japan, an ally of Britain since 1902, wasted no time in entering the fray, declaring war on Germany on August 23, 1914 and immediately plotting to capture Tsingtao, the biggest German overseas naval base, located on the Shantung Peninsula in China, by amphibious assault. Some 60,000 Japanese troops, assisted by two British battalions, subsequently violated Chinese neutrality with an overland approach from the sea towards Tsingtao, capturing the naval base on November 7 when the German garrison surrendered. That January, Japan presented China with the so-called 21 Demands, which included the extension of direct Japanese control over most of Shantung, southern Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia and the seizure of more territory, including islands in the South Pacific controlled by Germany.

TODAY IN HISTORY


Skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex discovered

On August 12, 1990, fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovers three huge bones jutting out of a cliff near Faith, South Dakota. They turn out to be part of the largest-ever Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, a 65 million-year-old specimen dubbed Sue, after its discoverer.

Amazingly, Sue’s skeleton was over 90 percent complete, and the bones were extremely well-preserved. Hendrickson’s employer, the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, paid $5,000 to the land owner, Maurice Williams, for the right to excavate the dinosaur skeleton, which was cleaned and transported to the company headquarters in Hill City. The institute’s president, Peter Larson, announced plans to build a non-profit museum to display Sue along with other fossils of the Cretaceous period.

In 1992, a long legal battle began over Sue. The U.S. Attorney’s Office claimed Sue’s bones had been seized from federal land and were therefore government property. It was eventually found that Williams, a part-Native American and member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, had traded his land to the tribe two decades earlier to avoid paying property taxes, and thus his sale of excavation rights to Black Hills had been invalid. In October 1997, Chicago’s Field Museum purchased Sue at public auction at Sotheby’s in New York City for $8.36 million, financed in part by the McDonald’s and Disney corporations.

Sue’s skeleton went on display at the Field Museum in May 2000. The tremendous T.rex skeleton—13 feet high at the hips and 42 feet long from head to toe, with a 2,000-pound skull and 58 teeth—is displayed in a special exhibition space.

Sue’s extraordinarily well-preserved bones have allowed scientists to determine many things about the life of T.rex. They have determined that the carnivorous dinosaur had an incredible sense of smell, as the olfactory bulbs were each bigger than the cerebrum, the thinking part of the brain. In addition, Sue was the first T.rex skeleton to be discovered with a wishbone, a crucial discovery that provided support for scientists’ theory that birds are a type of living dinosaur.









ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

2014

Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall dies

On August 12, 2014, actress Lauren Bacall, who shot to fame in her debut film, 1944’s “To Have and Have Not,” in which she appeared opposite Humphrey Bogart, with whom she would have a legendary romance, dies at her New York City home at age 89. In a career that spanned nearly 70 years, the smoky-voiced Bacall made more than 40 films, including “The Big Sleep,” (1946) “How to Marry a Millionaire” (1953) and “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996).





SPORTS

1973

American golfer Jack Nicklaus sets title record

On August 12, 1973, American golfer Jack Nicklaus wins the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) championship for his 14th major title, surpassing Bobby Jones’ record of 13 major championships. Nicklaus shot a seven-under-par 277 at Canterbury Golf Club in Beachwood, Ohio, to win $45,000 and his third PGA National championship. The “Golden Bear” went on to win 18 major tournaments, a record that still stands today. (Although it aptly describes his golden-colored hair and large build, Nicklaus’ famous moniker is actually derived from his high school alma mater, the Upper Arlington Golden Bears.)





COLONIAL AMERICA

1676

King Philip’s War ends

In colonial New England, King Philip’s War effectively comes to an end when Philip, chief of the Wampanoag tribe, is assassinated by a Native American in the service of the English. In the early 1670s, 50 years of peace between the Plymouth colony and the local Wampanoag Indians began to deteriorate when the rapidly expanding settlements forced land sales on the tribe. Reacting to increasing Native American tension, the English met with King Philip, chief of the Wampanoag, and demanded that his forces surrender their arms. The Wampanoag did so, but in 1675 a Christian Native American who had been acting as an informer to the English was murdered, and three Wampanoag were tried and executed for the crime.





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

1985

JAL flight 123 crashes into Mount Otsuka

At 6:50 p.m. local time, a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747SR crashes into Mount Otsuka, 70 miles northwest of Tokyo. There were 524 people aboard, and all but four were dead by the time rescuers reached the remote crash site 12 hours later. JAL flight 123 took off from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport under the command of Captain Takahama at 6:12 p.m. local time. Twelve minutes into the flight, as the jumbo jet was approaching its cruising altitude, an explosion shook the aircraft. A bulkhead had blown in the tail, creating over-pressurization that severed the four sets of hydraulic-control lines and blew part of the tail section off. With a total loss of hydraulic pressure, the captain radioed he was getting no response from his controls. For the next 27 minutes, Takahama attempted unsuccessfully to regain control of the aircraft as it descended uncontrollably in a flight condition known as the “Dutch roll.” At 6:50 p.m., JAL flight 123 crashed into Mount Otsuka at a point 4,780 feet above sea level.





ANCIENT EGYPT

30 B.C.

Cleopatra dies by suicide

Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, takes her life following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome. Cleopatra, born in 69 B.C., was made Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt, upon the death of her father, Ptolemy XII, in 51 B.C. Her brother was made King Ptolemy XIII at the same time, and the siblings ruled Egypt under the formal title of husband and wife. Cleopatra and Ptolemy were members of the Macedonian dynasty that governed Egypt since the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.





19TH CENTURY

1898

Armistice ends the Spanish-American War

The brief and one-sided Spanish-American War comes to an end when Spain formally agrees to a peace protocol on U.S. terms: the cession of Cuba, Puerto Rico and Manila in the Philippines to the United States pending a final peace treaty. The Spanish-American War had its origins in the rebellion against Spanish rule that began in Cuba in 1895. The repressive measures that Spain took to suppress the guerrilla war, such as herding Cuba’s rural population into disease-ridden garrison towns, were graphically portrayed in U.S. newspapers and enflamed public opinion. In January 1898, violence in Havana led U.S. authorities to order the battleship USS Maine to the city’s port to protect American citizens. On February 15, a massive explosion of unknown origin sank the Maine in the Havana harbor, killing 260 of the 400 American crewmembers aboard. An official U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry ruled in March, without much evidence, that the ship was blown up by a mine but did not directly place the blame on Spain. Much of Congress and a majority of the American public expressed little doubt that Spain was responsible, and called for a declaration of war.







WORLD WAR II

1941

FDR and Churchill meet on ship, map out Atlantic Charter

On August 12, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet on board a ship at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, to confer on issues ranging from support for Russia to threatening Japan to postwar peace. When Roosevelt and Churchill met for the first time as leaders of their respective nations, chief among the items on their agenda was aid to the USSR “on a gigantic scale,” as it was desperate in its war against its German invaders. A statement was also drafted, which Roosevelt chose to issue under his name, that made it plain to Japan that any further aggression would “produce a situation in which the United States government would be compelled to take counter-measures,” even if it meant “war between the United States and Japan.”





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1939

“The Wizard of Oz” movie premieres in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin

The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland and featuring words and music by E.Y. “Yip” Harburg and Harold Arlen, receives its world premiere in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, on August 12, 1939. The beloved characters and familiar plot points were mostly all there in the original children’s book, from the Kansas farm girl in shiny slippers transported to Munchkin land by a terrible tornado, to the wicked witch, the brainless scarecrow, the heartless tin woodsman and the cowardly lion she encounters once she gets there. But what’s missing, of course, from Frank Baum’s bestselling novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is the music that helped make those characters so beloved and those plot points so familiar. First published in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was adapted numerous times for the stage and screen and even set to music prior to 1939. It was that year’s film adaptation, however, that earned Baum’s work a permanent place not only in cinema history, but also in music history.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1964

James Bond creator Ian Fleming dies

On August 12, 1964, the British author and journalist Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, the world’s most famous fictional spy, dies of a heart attack at age 56 in Kent, England. Fleming’s series of novels about the debonair Agent 007, based in part on their dashing author’s real-life experiences, spawned one of the most lucrative film franchises in history.





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

2000

Russian sub, the “Kursk,” sinks with 118 onboard

A Russian nuclear submarine sinks to the bottom of the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000; all 118 crew members are later found dead. The exact cause of the disaster remains unknown. Kursk left port on August 10 to take part in war games with the Russian military.





CRIME

1964

Great Train robber escapes from prison

On August 12, 1964, Charlie Wilson, part of the gang who pulled off the 1963 Great Train Robbery, one of the biggest heists of its kind, escapes from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, England. Several men broke into the maximum-security facility to free Wilson, who remained on the loose until 1968.





AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1776

General Washington anticipates British strategy

On August 12, 1776, General George Washington writes to Major General Charles Lee that the Continental Army’s situation had deteriorated due to an outbreak of smallpox and problems with desertion. Washington feared that the superior British navy might blockade New York, thus isolating the city from communications with other states.









WORLD WAR II

1938

Hitler encourages Germans to have multiple children with the Mother’s Cross

On August 12, 1938, Adolf Hitler institutes the Mother’s Cross, to encourage German women to have more children, to be awarded each year on August 12, Hitler’s mother’s birthday. The German Reich needed a robust and growing population and encouraged couples to have large families. It started such encouragement early. Once members of the distaff wing of the Hitler Youth movement, the League of German Girls, turned 18, they became eligible for a branch called Faith and Beauty, which trained these girls in the art of becoming ideal mothers. One component of that ideal was fecundity. And so each year, in honor of his beloved mother, Klara, and in memory of her birthday, a gold medal was awarded to women with seven children, a silver to women with six, and a bronze to women with five.

TODAY IN HISTORY


George Washington creates the Purple Heart

On August 7, 1782, in Newburgh, New York, General George Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army, creates the “Badge for Military Merit,” a decoration consisting of a purple, heart-shaped piece of silk, edged with a narrow binding of silver, with the word Merit stitched across the face in silver.

The badge was to be presented to soldiers for “any singularly meritorious action” and permitted its wearer to pass guards and sentinels without challenge. The honoree’s name and regiment were also to be inscribed in a “Book of Merit.”

Washington’s “Purple Heart" was awarded to only three known soldiers during the Revolutionary War: Elijah Churchill, William Brown and Daniel Bissell, Jr. The “Book of Merit” was lost, and the decoration was largely forgotten until 1927, when General Charles P. Summerall, the U.S. Army chief of staff, sent an unsuccessful draft bill to Congress to “revive the Badge of Military Merit."

In 1931, Summerall’s successor, General Douglas MacArthur, took up the cause, hoping to reinstate the medal in time for the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. On February 22, 1932, Washington’s 200th birthday, the U.S. War Department announced the creation of the “Order of the Purple Heart.”

In addition to aspects of Washington’s original design, the new Purple Heart also displays a bust of Washington and his coat of arms. The Order of the Purple Heart, the oldest American military decoration for military merit, is awarded to members of the U.S. armed forces who have been killed or wounded in action against an enemy. It is also awarded to soldiers who have suffered maltreatment as prisoners of war.









1970S

1974

Philippe Petit walks on a tightrope between the Twin Towers

High above the early-morning traffic in Lower Manhattan, a French street performer steps off the roof of the south tower of the World Trade Center on August 7, 1974. Clad in black and carrying a long pole for balance, Philippe Petit begins the most famous high-wire walk in history, calmly traversing the space between the Twin Towers at a height of 1,350 feet.





SPACE EXPLORATION

1959

The first U.S. satellite to photograph the Earth is launched

From the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the U.S. unmanned spacecraft Explorer 6 is launched into an orbit around the earth. The spacecraft, commonly known as the “Paddlewheel” satellite, featured a photocell scanner that transmitted a crude picture of the earth’s surface and cloud cover from a distance of 17,000 miles. The photo, received in Hawaii, took nearly 40 minutes to transmit.





AFRICA

1998

U.S. embassies in East Africa bombed

At 10:30 a.m. local time, a massive truck bomb explodes outside the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Minutes later, another truck bomb detonated outside the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, the capital of neighboring Tanzania. The dual terrorist attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounded more than 4,500. The United States accused Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, a proponent of international terrorism against America, of masterminding the bombings. On August 20, President Bill Clinton ordered cruise missiles launched against bin Laden’s terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and against a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, where bin Laden allegedly made or distributed chemical weapons.





21ST CENTURY

2005

Trapped Russian sub rescued

On August 7, 2005, a Russian Priz AS-28 mini-submarine, with seven crew members on board, is rescued from deep in the Pacific Ocean. On August 4, the vessel had been taking part in training exercises in Beryozovaya Bay, off the coast of Russia’s far-eastern Kamchatka peninsula, when its propellers became entangled in cables that were part of Russia’s coastal monitoring system. Unable to surface, the sub’s crew was stranded in the dark, freezing submarine for more than three days.





US POLITICS

1912

Teddy Roosevelt nominated as Bull Moose candidate

Theodore Roosevelt is nominated for the presidency by the Progressive Party, a group of Republicans dissatisfied with the renomination of President William Howard Taft. Also known as the Bull Moose Party, the Progressive platform called for the direct election of U.S. senators, woman suffrage, reduction of the tariff and many social reforms. Roosevelt, who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909, embarked on a vigorous campaign as the party’s presidential candidate. A key point of his platform was the “Square Deal”—Roosevelt’s concept of a society based on fair business competition and increased welfare for needy Americans.





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1944

Volkswagen halts production during World War II

On August 7, 1944, under the threat of Allied bombing during World War II, the German car manufacturer Volkswagen halts production of the “Beetle,” as its small, insect-shaped automobile was dubbed in the international press. Ten years earlier, the renowned automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche had signed a contract with Germany’s Third Reich to develop a prototype of a small, affordable “people’s car.” The German chancellor, National Socialist (Nazi) leader Adolf Hitler, called the car the KdF (Kraft-durch-Freude)-Wagen (or “Strength-Through-Joy” car), after a Nazi-led movement ostensibly aimed at helping the working people of Germany. Porsche didn’t like that moniker; he preferred Volkswagen (meaning “people’s car”), the name under which the car had originally been developed. In 1938, the government built a factory to produce the car in the city of KdF-stat. The first production-ready Beetle debuted at the Berlin Motor Show in 1939. Several months later, Germany invaded Poland, sparking the conflict that would explode into world war.







INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1947

Norwegian explorer completes 4,300-mile ocean voyage in wooden raft

On August 7, 1947, Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft captained by Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, completes a 4,300-mile, 101-day journey from Peru to Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago, near Tahiti. Heyerdahl wanted to prove his theory that prehistoric South Americans could have colonized the Polynesian islands by drifting on ocean currents.





WORLD WAR II

1942

U.S. forces invade Guadalcanal

On August 7, 1942, the U.S. 1st Marine Division begins Operation Watchtower, the first U.S. offensive of the war, by landing on Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands. Weeks earlier, the Japanese landed on Guadalcanal Island and began constructing an airfield there.





SPORTS

1987

Lynne Cox swims into communist territory

On August 7, 1987, Lynne Cox braves the freezing waters of the Bering Strait to make the first recorded swim from the United States to the Soviet Union. Lynne Cox’s swimming career began in her native New Hampshire when she was just nine years old.





U.S. PRESIDENTS

1990

Bush orders Operation Desert Shield

On August 7, 1990, President George Herbert Walker Bush orders the organization of Operation Desert Shield in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2. The order prepared American troops to become part of an international coalition in the war against Iraq that would be launched as Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. To support Operation Desert Shield, Bush authorized a dramatic increase in U.S. troops and resources in the Persian Gulf.





LATIN AMERICA

1956

Mysterious explosions in Colombia

Seven army ammunition trucks explode in Cali, Colombia, killing more than 1,000 people and injuring thousands more on August 7, 1956. The cause of the explosions remains a mystery. The previous day, 20 trucks fully loaded with dynamite departed the Colombian city of Buenaventura.





VIETNAM WAR

1964

Congress passes Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

The United States Congress overwhelming approves the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly unlimited powers to oppose “communist aggression” in Southeast Asia. The resolution marked the beginning of an expanded military role for the United States in the Cold War battlefields of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

TODAY IN HISTORY


Anne Frank captured

Acting on tip from an informer, the Nazi Gestapo captures 15-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family in a sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse. The Franks had taken shelter there in 1942 out of fear of deportation to a Nazi concentration camp. They occupied the small space with another Jewish family and a single Jewish man, and were aided by Christian friends, who brought them food and supplies. Anne spent much of her time in the so-called “secret annex” working on her diary. The diary survived the war, overlooked by the Gestapo that discovered the hiding place, but Anne and nearly all of the others perished in the Nazi death camps.

Annelies Marie Frank was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on June 12, 1929. She was the second daughter of Otto Frank and Edith Frank-Hollander, both of Jewish families that had lived in Germany for centuries. With the rise of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in 1933, Otto moved his family to Amsterdam to escape the escalating Nazi persecution of Jews. In Holland, he ran a successful spice and jam business. Anne attended a Montessori school with other middle-class Dutch children, but with the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 she was forced to transfer to a Jewish school. In 1942, Otto began arranging a hiding place in an annex of his warehouse on the Prinsengracht Canal in Amsterdam.

On her 13th birthday in 1942, Anne began a diary relating her everyday experiences, her relationship with her family and friends, and observations about the increasingly dangerous world around her. Less than a month later, Anne’s older sister, Margot, received a call-up notice to report to a Nazi “work camp.” Fearing deportation to a Nazi concentration camp, the Frank family took shelter in the secret annex the next day. One week later, they were joined by Otto Frank’s business partner and his family. In November, a Jewish dentist—the eighth occupant of the hiding place—joined the group.

For two years, Anne kept a diary about her life in hiding that is marked with poignancy, humor, and insight. The entrance to the secret annex was hidden by a hinged bookcase, and former employees of Otto and other Dutch friends delivered them food and supplies procured at high risk. Anne and the others lived in rooms with blacked-out windows, and never flushed the toilet during the day out of fear that their presence would be detected. In June 1944, Anne’s spirits were raised by the Allied landings at Normandy, and she was hopeful that the long-awaited liberation of Holland would soon begin.

On August 1, 1944, Anne made her last entry in her diary. Three days later, 25 months of seclusion ended with the arrival of the Nazi Gestapo. Anne and the others had been given away by an unknown informer, and they were arrested along with two of the Christians who had helped shelter them.

They were sent to a concentration camp in Holland, and in September Anne and most of the others were shipped to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. In the fall of 1944, with the Soviet liberation of Poland underway, Anne was moved with her sister Margot to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Suffering under the deplorable conditions of the camp, the two sisters caught typhus and died in February 1945. The camp was liberated by the British less than two months later.

Otto Frank was the only one of the 10 to survive the Nazi death camps. After the war, he returned to Amsterdam via Russia, and was reunited with Miep Gies, one of his former employees who had helped shelter him. She handed him Anne’s diary, which she had found undisturbed after the Nazi raid.

In 1947, Anne’s diary was published by Otto in its original Dutch. An instant best-seller and eventually translated into more than 70 languages, The Diary of Anne Frank has served as a literary testament to the nearly six million Jews, including Anne herself, who were silenced in the Holocaust.

The Frank family’s hideaway at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam opened as a museum in 1960. A new English translation of Anne’s diary in 1995 restored material that had been edited out of the original version, making the work nearly a third longer.









CRIME

2019

Dayton, Ohio shooting becomes second mass shooting in 24-hour period

A mass shooting takes place early in the morning in Dayton, Ohio on August 4, 2019. The killing of nine people and the injuries of 27 was significant in its own right, but this mass shooting was particularly notable for being America’s second in less than 24 hours.





IMMIGRATION

1942

U.S. and Mexico sign the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement

On August 4, 1942, the United States and Mexico sign the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement, creating what is known as the "Bracero Program." The program, which lasted until 1964, was the largest guest-worker program in U.S. history. Throughout its existence, the Bracero Program benefited both farmers and laborers but also gave rise to numerous labor disputes, abuses of workers and other problems that have long characterized the history of farm labor in the Southwestern United States.





SPORTS

2012

Oscar Pistorius becomes the first amputee runner to compete at the Olympics

On August 4, 2012 in London, Oscar Pistorius of South Africa becomes the first amputee to compete at the Olympics by running in an opening heat of the men’s 400-meter. Pistorius finished second out of five runners and advanced to the semifinals, where he finished eighth out of eight runners. His image would drastically change early the next year when the star athlete was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend. He was found guilty in 2014.





COLONIAL AMERICA

1753

George Washington becomes a Master Mason

George Washington, a young Virginia planter, becomes a Master Mason, the highest basic rank in the secret fraternity of Freemasonry. The ceremony was held at the Masonic Lodge No. 4 in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Washington was 21 years old and would soon command his first military operation as a major in the Virginia colonial militia.





CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

1964

Slain civil rights workers found

The remains of three civil rights workers whose disappearance on June 21 garnered national attention are found buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both white New Yorkers, had traveled to heavily segregated Mississippi in 1964 to help organize civil rights efforts on behalf of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The third man, James Chaney, was a local African American man who had joined CORE in 1963. The disappearance of the three young men led to a massive FBI investigation that was code-named MIBURN, for “Mississippi Burning.”





CRIME

1892

Lizzie Borden's parents found dead

On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden are found hacked to death in their Fall River, Massachusetts, home. Andrew was discovered in a pool of blood on the living room couch, his face nearly split in two. Abby was upstairs, her head smashed to pieces; it was later determined that she was killed first.





SPORTS

1936

Jesse Owens wins long jump–and respect–in Germany

On August 4, 1936, American Jesse Owens wins gold in the long jump at the Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. It was the second of four gold medals Owens won in Berlin, as he firmly dispelled German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler’s notion of the superiority of an Aryan “master race,” for all the world to see. Jesse Owens first made his mark on the international stage at just 21 years old on May 25, 1935, while an undergrad at Ohio State University, by setting three world records and tying another at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “The Buckeye Bullet” started his afternoon by running the 100-yard dash in just 9.4 seconds to tie the world record. Just 10 minutes later, Owens jumped 26’8 1/4″, setting a world record he would hold until 1951. And, ten minutes after that, Owens set another world record in the 220-yard dash with a time of 20.3 seconds. Finally, less than an hour after his afternoon of competition started, Owens ran the 220-yard hurdles in 22.6 seconds for his third outright world record of the day. Owens’ impressive performance caused a sensation across the United States, and the track world looked forward to following his progress at the upcoming 1936 Olympics.





WESTWARD EXPANSION

1873

Colonel Custer and 7th Cavalry attacked by the Sioux

While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, Custer and his 7th Cavalry clash for the first time with the local Sioux Native Americans, who will defeat them three years later at the Little Big Horn. During the previous two years, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry had not fought a single battle against the tribes of the western Plains. Hungry for action, Custer was pleased when the 7th Cavalry was ordered to help protect a party of surveyors laying out the route for the proposed Northern Pacific Railroad. The new transcontinental railroad (the third in the United States) was to pass through Sioux territory.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

2006

“Talladega Nights” released

“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” an irreverent comedy based in the outlandish (fictionalized) world of American stock car racing, premieres in movie theaters around the United States on August 4, 2006. The comedian Will Ferrell (who also co-wrote the screenplay with director Adam McKay and served as an executive producer) starred as Ricky Bobby, a leading driver on the National Association for Stock Auto Car Racing (NASCAR) circuit. Macho and arrogant, Ricky Bobby is known for his motto “If you’re not first, you’re last!” and has no problems with the fact that his winning record is based on the willingness of his loyal friend and fellow driver, Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly) to always come in second to Ricky’s first. This arrangement is upset by the arrival of Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen), a flamboyant French star of Europe’s Formula One racing. After a devastating crash, Ricky Bobby loses his job and his wife (both to Cal) and is forced to work his way back up in the NASCAR world. The climactic scene–featuring an explosive kiss in the middle of the track–takes place during the famous Talladega 500 race at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway.





WORLD WAR I

1914

U.S. proclaims neutrality in World War I

As World War I erupts in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson formally proclaims the neutrality of the United States, a position that a vast majority of Americans favored, on August 4, 1914. Wilson’s initial hope that America could be “impartial in thought as well as in action” was soon compromised by Germany’s attempted quarantine of the British Isles. Britain was one of America’s closest trading partners, and tension arose between the United States and Germany when several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines.

TODAY IN HISTORY


Nautilus submarine travels under North Pole

On August 3, 1958, the U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus accomplishes the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole. The world’s first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus dived at Point Barrow, Alaska, and traveled nearly 1,000 miles under the Arctic ice cap to reach the top of the world. It then steamed on to Iceland, pioneering a new and shorter route from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Europe.

The USS Nautilus was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in charge of the navy’s nuclear-propulsion program and began work on an atomic submarine. Regarded as a fanatic by his detractors, Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world’s first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, the Nautilus’ keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and on January 21, 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned on September 30, 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of January 17, 1955.

Much larger than the diesel-electric submarines that preceded it, the Nautilus stretched 319 feet and displaced 3,180 tons. It could remain submerged for almost unlimited periods because its atomic engine needed no air and only a very small quantity of nuclear fuel. The uranium-powered nuclear reactor produced steam that drove propulsion turbines, allowing the Nautilus to travel underwater at speeds in excess of 20 knots.

In its early years of service, the USS Nautilus broke numerous submarine travel records and on July 23, 1958, departed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on “Operation Northwest Passage”—the first crossing of the North Pole by submarine. There were 116 men aboard for this historic voyage, including Commander William R. Anderson, 111 officers and crew, and four civilian scientists. The Nautilus steamed north through the Bering Strait and did not surface until it reached Point Barrow, Alaska, in the Beaufort Sea, though it did send its periscope up once off the Diomedes Islands, between Alaska and Siberia, to check for radar bearings. On August 1, the submarine left the north coast of Alaska and dove under the Arctic ice cap.

The submarine traveled at a depth of about 500 feet, and the ice cap above varied in thickness from 10 to 50 feet, with the midnight sun of the Arctic shining in varying degrees through the blue ice. At 11:15 p.m. EDT on August 3, 1958, Commander Anderson announced to his crew: “For the world, our country, and the Navy—the North Pole.” The Nautilus passed under the geographic North Pole without pausing. The submarine next surfaced in the Greenland Sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland on August 5. Two days later, it ended its historic journey at Iceland. For the command during the historic journey, President Dwight D. Eisenhower decorated Anderson with the Legion of Merit.

After a career spanning 25 years and almost 500,000 miles steamed, the Nautilus was decommissioned on March 3, 1980. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982, the world’s first nuclear submarine went on exhibit in 1986 as the Historic Ship Nautilus at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut.









U.S. PRESIDENTS

1923

Calvin Coolidge takes oath of office after Warren G. Harding’s death

On August 3, 1923, Calvin Coolidge is sworn in as the 30th president of the United States, hours after the death of President Warren G. Harding. Born July 4, 1872, in Plymouth, Vermont, Coolidge was the son of a village storekeeper. He graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts and worked his way up in the political ranks in that state as a Republican, from city councilman in Northampton in 1898 to governor in 1918. Coolidge made it onto the Republican ticket in 1920 as Harding’s running mate, and they won a decisive victory over a Democratic pairing of James Cox and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.





1970S

1975

Boeing 707 crashes into a mountain near Agadir, Morocco

On August 3, 1975, a chartered Boeing 707 jetliner crashes in the Atlas Mountains near Agadir, a coastal city in Morocco. All 188 people aboard the plane were killed, in the fourth worst air disaster to that date. Owned by the Jordanian airline Alia and chartered to Royal Air Maroc, the 707 left LeBourget Airport in Paris at 2:20 a.m. on the morning of August 3, 1975. Apart from four Europeans, all of the passengers on board were Moroccan citizens who worked in France and were traveling home for their summer holidays. The flight disappeared from Agadir airport-control radar at 4:28 a.m.; an airport official had spoken via radio with the pilot moments earlier, with no hint of trouble. The plane was scheduled to land in Agadir just two minutes later, at 4:30 a.m., and was descending for approach in heavy fog when the right wing tip and one of the engines struck a peak at an altitude of 2,400 feet. The pilot lost control of the plane, which crashed into a ravine, exploded and burned near the small, remote village of Imzizen. All 181 passengers were killed, along with seven crew members.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1996

“The Macarena” begins its reign atop the U.S. pop charts

If pop songs, like hurricanes, were rated on an objective scale according to their ability to devastate the pop-cultural landscape, then the song that reached the top of the American pop charts on August 3, 1996 was a Category 5 monster. It first made landfall in Florida as a seemingly harmless Spanish-language rumba, but in the hands of a pair of Miami record producers, it soon morphed and strengthened into something called “Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix),” a song that laid waste to all competition during a record-setting run at #1 that began on this day.





GREAT BRITAIN

1916

Sir Roger Casement hanged

Sir Roger David Casement, an Irish-born diplomat who in 1911 was knighted by King George V, is executed for his role in Ireland’s Easter Rising. Casement was an Irish Protestant who served as a British diplomat during the early part of the 20th century.





EXPLORATION

1492

Columbus sets sail

From the Spanish port of Palos, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sets sail in command of three ships—the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina—on a journey to find a western sea route to China, India and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. On October 12, the expedition sighted land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas, and went ashore the same day, claiming it for Spain. Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China, and in December the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which Columbus thought might be Japan. He established a small colony there with 39 of his men. The explorer returned to Spain with gold, spices, and “Indian” captives in March 1493 and was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court. He was the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century.





VIETNAM WAR

1965

TV news shows Marines burning village

CBS-TV news shows pictures of men from the First Battalion, Ninth Marines setting fire to huts in the village of Cam Na, six miles west of Da Nang, despite reports that the Viet Cong had already fled the area. The film report sparked indignation and condemnation of the U.S. policy in Vietnam both at home and overseas. At the same time, the Department of Defense announced that it was increasing the monthly draft call from 17,000 in August to 27,400 in September and 36,000 in October. It also announced that the Navy would require 4,600 draftees, the first such action since 1956.





SPORTS

1949

NBA is born

On August 3, 1949, after a damaging three-year battle to win both players and fans, the rival Basketball Association of America (BAA) and National Basketball League (NBL) merge to form the National Basketball Association (NBA). The BAA incorporated in 1946, challenging the the hegemony of the nine-year old NBL. The BAA established itself in bigger cities than the NBL, which existed only in small Midwestern cities like Fort Wayne, Sheboygan and Akron. While the NBL held its games in small gymnasiums, the upstart BAA played its games in large major-market arenas such as the Boston Garden and New York City’s Madison Square Garden. By the 1948-49 season, the BAA had begun to attract some of the country’s best players, and four NBL franchises—Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Rochester—moved to the BAA, bringing their star players with them. George Mikan, the biggest attraction in either league who by himself could virtually assure a team’s success, defected to the new league with the Minneapolis Lakers.





19TH CENTURY

1846

Donner Party encounters first delay

An ominous sign of the troubles to come, the Donner Party finds a note warning the emigrants that their expected route through the mountains ahead is nearly impassable. The Donner Party had left Springfield, Illinois, three months earlier. Led by two wealthy brothers, Jacob and George Donner, the emigrants initially followed the regular California Trail westward to Fort Bridger, Wyoming. From there, however, the emigrants decided to leave the established trail and take a new and supposedly shorter route to California laid out by an unscrupulous trail guide named Lansford Hastings. Hastings was not at Fort Bridger at the time—he was leading an earlier wagon train along his new route. He left word for the Donner Party to follow, promising that he would mark the trail for them.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

2008

Multimillion-dollar baby photos published

On August 3, 2008, the first published photos of former couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s newborn twins, Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon, go up on People magazine’s website. A 19-page photo spread followed in the magazine’s August 18, 2008, issue.







CRIME

1982

Sodomy arrest sparks controversy

Michael Hardwick is arrested for "sodomy" after a police officer observes him having sex with another man in his own bedroom in Georgia. Although the district attorney eventually dropped the charges, Hardwick decided to challenge the constitutionality of Georgia’s law.





COLD WAR

1948

Chambers accuses Hiss of being a communist spy

In hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Whittaker Chambers accuses former State Department official Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union. The accusation set into motion a series of events that eventually resulted in the trial and conviction of Hiss for perjury.





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1977

“The Spy Who Loved Me” released in theaters

On August 3, 1977, “The Spy Who Loved Me,” starring Roger Moore as the suave superspy James Bond, known for his love of fast cars and dangerous women, is released in theaters across America. The film features one of the most memorable Bond cars of all time–a sleek, powerful Lotus Esprit sports car that does double duty as a submarine.





WORLD WAR I

1914

Germany and France declare war on each other

On the afternoon of August 3, 1914, two days after declaring war on Russia, Germany declares war on France, moving ahead with a long-held strategy, conceived by the former chief of staff of the German army, Alfred von Schlieffen, for a two-front war against France and Russia.

TODAY IN HISTORY

Iraq invades Kuwait

On August 2, 1990, at about 2 a.m. local time, Iraqi forces invade Kuwait, Iraq’s tiny, oil-rich neighbor. Kuwait’s defense forces were rapidly overwhelmed, and those that were not destroyed retreated to Saudi Arabia. The emir of Kuwait, his family, and other government leaders fled to Saudi Arabia, and within hours Kuwait City had been captured and the Iraqis had established a provincial government. By annexing Kuwait, Iraq gained control of 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves and, for the first time, a substantial coastline on the Persian Gulf. The same day, the United Nations Security Council unanimously denounced the invasion and demanded Iraq’s immediate withdrawal from Kuwait. On August 6, the Security Council imposed a worldwide ban on trade with Iraq.

On August 9, Operation Desert Shield, the American defense of Saudi Arabia, began as U.S. forces raced to the Persian Gulf. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, built up his occupying army in Kuwait to about 300,000 troops. On November 29, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it failed to withdraw by January 15, 1991. Hussein refused to withdraw his forces from Kuwait, which he had established as a province of Iraq, and some 700,000 allied troops, primarily American, gathered in the Middle East to enforce the deadline.

At 4:30 p.m. EST on January 16, 1991, Operation Desert Storm, the massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq, began as the first fighter aircraft were launched from Saudi Arabia and off U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. All evening, aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire on television footage transmitted live via satellite from Iraq. Operation Desert Storm was conducted by an international coalition under the supreme command of U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf and featured forces from 32 nations, including Britain, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

During the next six weeks, the allied force engaged in an intensive air war against Iraq’s military and civil infrastructure and encountered little effective resistance from the Iraqi air force or air defenses. Iraqi ground forces were helpless during this stage of the war, and Hussein’s only significant retaliatory measure was the launching of SCUD missile attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saddam hoped that the missile attacks would provoke Israel to enter the conflict, thus dissolving Arab support of the war. At the request of the United States, however, Israel remained out of the war.

On February 24, a massive coalition ground offensive began, and Iraq’s outdated and poorly supplied armed forces were rapidly overwhelmed. By the end of the day, the Iraqi army had effectively folded, 10,000 of its troops were held as prisoners, and a U.S. air base had been established deep inside Iraq. After less than four days, Kuwait was liberated, and the majority of Iraq’s armed forces had either surrendered, retreated to Iraq, or been destroyed.

On February 28, U.S. President George Bush declared a cease-fire, and on April 3 the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 687, specifying conditions for a formal end to the conflict. According to the resolution, Bush’s cease-fire would become official, some sanctions would be lifted, but the ban on Iraqi oil sales would continue until Iraq destroyed its weapons of mass destruction under U.N. supervision. On April 6, Iraq accepted the resolution, and on April 11 the Security Council declared it in effect. During the next decade, Saddam Hussein frequently violated the terms of the peace agreement, prompting further allied air strikes and continuing U.N. sanctions.

In the Persian Gulf War, 148 American soldiers were killed and 457 wounded. The other allied nations suffered about 100 deaths combined during Operation Desert Storm. There are no official figures for the number of Iraqi casualties, but it is believed that at least 25,000 soldiers were killed and more than 75,000 were wounded, making it one of the most one-sided military conflicts in history. It is estimated that 100,000 Iraqi civilians died from wounds or from lack of adequate water, food, and medical supplies directly attributable to the Persian Gulf War. In the ensuing years, more than one million Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the subsequent U.N.







WORLD WAR II

1934

Hitler becomes dictator of Germany

With the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolf Hitler becomes absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Fuhrer, or “Leader.” The German army took an oath of allegiance to its new commander-in-chief, and the last remnants of Germany’s democratic government were dismantled to make way for Hitler’s Third Reich. The Fuhrer assured his people that the Third Reich would last for a thousand years, but Nazi Germany collapsed just 11 years later.





U.S. PRESIDENTS

1923

President Warren G. Harding dies before scandals break

In a hotel in San Francisco, President Warren G. Harding dies of a stroke at the age of 58. Harding was returning from a presidential tour of Alaska and the West Coast, a journey some believed he had embarked on to escape the rumors circulating in Washington of corruption in his in his administration.





SPORTS

1992

Jackie Joyner-Kersee wins gold in heptathlon, again

On August 2, 1992, Jackie Joyner-Kersee becomes the first woman ever to win two consecutive Olympic gold medals in the heptathlon. Born and raised in East St. Louis, Jackie Joyner overcame poverty and chronic asthma to win a scholarship to UCLA, where she starred on the basketball and track teams. (Jackie was not the only standout athlete in her family: Her brother Al was a six-time NCAA champion in track at Arkansas State University.) At her first Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, the 22-year-old Joyner, running on a sore hamstring, missed the gold in the heptathlon by just five points: She scored a 6,385 to Australian Glynis Nunn’s 6,390. The Joyner family was not shut out of gold, however. Jackie’s brother Al, who would later marry sprinting sensation Florence Griffith, brought home top honors in the triple jump.





CRIME

1876

Wild Bill Hickok is murdered

“Wild Bill” Hickok, one of the greatest gunfighters of the American West, is murdered in Deadwood, South Dakota. Born in Illinois in 1837, James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok first gained notoriety as a gunfighter in 1861 when he coolly shot three men who were trying to kill him.





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

1985

Sudden thunderstorm causes plane crash

On August 2, 1985, strong and sudden wind gusts cause a plane crash at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport in Texas that kills 135 people. The rapid and unexpected formation of a supercell, an extremely violent form of thunderstorm, led to the tragedy.





CRIME

1942

Man murdered near L.A. reservoir

On August 2, 1942, Jose Diaz is murdered, and his body is found at the Sleepy Lagoon reservoir, near Los Angeles, California. Two days later, police began to round up and arrest 22 men of Mexican descent in the Los Angeles area for conspiring to kill Diaz.









CIVIL WAR

1865

CSS Shenandoah learns the war is over

The captain and crew of the C.S.S. Shenandoah, still prowling the waters of the Pacific in search of Yankee whaling ships, is finally informed by a British vessel that the South has lost the war. The Shenandoah was the last major Confederate cruiser to set sail.





COLD WAR

1945

Potsdam Conference concludes

The last wartime conference of the “Big Three”—the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain—concludes after two weeks of intense and sometimes acrimonious debate. The conference failed to settle most of the important issues at hand and thus helped set the stage for the Cold War that would begin shortly after World War II came to an end.





AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1776

Delegates sign Declaration of Independence

On August 2, 1776, members of Congress affix their signatures to an enlarged copy of the Declaration of Independence. Fifty-six congressional delegates in total signed the document, including some who were not present at the vote approving the declaration.





WORLD WAR I

1917

Mutiny breaks out on German battleship

On August 2, 1917, with British forces settling into new positions captured from the Germans in the much-contested Ypres Salient on the Western Front of World War I, Germany faces more trouble closer to home, as a mutiny breaks out aboard the German battleship Prinzregent Luitpold, anchored at the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven.

TODAY IN HISTORY


Labor leader Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing

On the morning of July 31, 1975, James Riddle Hoffa, one of the most influential American labor leaders of the 20th century, is officially reported missing after he failed to return home the previous night. Though he is popularly believed to have been the victim of a Mafia hit, conclusive evidence was never found and Hoffa’s fate remains a mystery.

Born in 1913 to a poor coal miner in Brazil, Indiana, Jimmy Hoffa proved a natural leader in his youth. At the age of 20, he helped organize a labor strike in Detroit, and remained an advocate for downtrodden workers for the rest of his life. Hoffa’s charisma and talents as a local organizer quickly got him noticed by the Teamsters and carried him upward through its ranks. Then a small but rapidly growing union, the Teamsters organized truckers across the country, and through the use of strikes, boycotts and some more powerful though less legal methods of protest, won contract demands on behalf of workers.

Hoffa became president of the Teamsters in 1957, when its former leader was imprisoned for bribery. As chief, Hoffa was lauded for his tireless work to expand the union, and for his unflagging devotion to even the organization’s least powerful members. His caring and approachability were captured in one of the more well-known quotes attributed to him: “You got a problem? Call me. Just pick up the phone.”

Hoffa’s dedication to the worker and his electrifying public speeches made him wildly popular, both among his fellow workers and the politicians and businessmen with whom he negotiated. Yet, for all the battles he fought and won on behalf of American drivers, he also had a dark side. In Hoffa’s time, many Teamster leaders partnered with the Mafia in racketeering, extortion and embezzlement. Hoffa himself had relationships with high-ranking mobsters, and was the target of several government investigations throughout the 1960s. In 1967, he was convicted of bribery and sentenced to 13 years in prison.

While in jail, Hoffa never ceded his office, and when Richard Nixon commuted his sentence in 1971, he was poised to make a comeback. Released on condition of not participating in union activities for 10 years, Hoffa was planning to fight the restriction in court when he disappeared on the afternoon of July 30, 1975, from the parking lot of a restaurant in Detroit, not far from where he got his start as a labor organizer. His family filed a missing persons report to the Bloomfield Township police the next day. Several conspiracy theories have been floated about Hoffa’s disappearance and the location of his remains, but the truth remains unknown.







SPACE EXPLORATION

1964

Ranger 7 photographs moon

Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, takes the first close-up images of the moon—4,308 in total—before it impacts with the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of Clouds. The images were 1,000 times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes.





RELIGION

1556

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, dies

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order of Roman Catholic missionaries and educators, dies in Rome. The Society of Jesus, as the Jesuit order is formally known, played an important role in the Counter-Reformation and eventually succeeded in converting millions around the world to Catholicism.





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

1715

Hurricane sinks Spanish treasure ships

A hurricane strikes the east coast of Florida, sinking 10 Spanish treasure ships and killing nearly 1,000 people, on July 31, 1715. All of the gold and silver onboard at the time would not be recovered until 250 years later. From 1701, Spain sent fleets of ships to the Western Hemisphere to bring back natural resources, including gold and silver. These groups of ships were heavily fortified against pirates, but there was little that could be done to protect them from bad weather.





AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1777

Marquis de Lafayette becomes a major-general without pay

On July 31, 1777, a 19-year-old French aristocrat, Marie-Joseph Paul Roch Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, accepts a commission as a major-general in the Continental Army—without pay. During his service as the Continental Congress’ secret envoy to France, Silas Deane had, on December 7, 1776, struck an agreement with French military expert, Baron Johann DeKalb, and his protege, the Marquis de Lafayette, to offer their military knowledge and experience to the American cause. However, Deane was replaced with Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, who were unenthused by the proposal. Meanwhile, King Louis XVI feared angering Britain and prohibited Lafayette’s departure. The British ambassador to the French court at Versailles demanded the seizure of Lafayette’s ship, which resulted in Lafayette’s arrest. Lafayette, though, managed to escape, set sail and elude two British ships dispatched to recapture him.





WORLD WAR I

1917

Third Battle of Ypres begins in Flanders

On July 31, 1917, the Allies launch a renewed assault on German lines in the Flanders region of Belgium, in the much-contested region near Ypres, during World War I. The attack begins more than three months of brutal fighting, known as the Third Battle of Ypres.





WORLD WAR II

1941

Preparations for the Final Solution begin

On July 31, 1941, Hermann Göring, writing under instructions from Hitler, ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, “to submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.”

TODAY IN HISTORY


President Johnson signs Medicare into law

On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs Medicare, a health insurance program for elderly Americans, into law. At the bill-signing ceremony, which took place at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, former President Harry Truman was enrolled as Medicare’s first beneficiary and received the first Medicare card.

Johnson wanted to recognize Truman, who, in 1945, had become the first president to propose national health insurance, an initiative that was opposed at the time by Congress.

The Medicare program, providing hospital and medical insurance for Americans age 65 or older, was signed into law as an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1935. Some 19 million people enrolled in Medicare when it went into effect in 1966.

In 1972, eligibility for the program was extended to Americans under 65 with certain disabilities and people of all ages with permanent kidney disease requiring dialysis or transplant. In December 2003, President George W. Bush signed into law the Medicare Modernization Act, which added outpatient prescription drug benefits to Medicare.

Medicaid, a state and federally funded program that offers health coverage to certain low-income people, was also signed into law by President Johnson on July 30, 1965, as an amendment to the Social Security Act.









ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1966

The Troggs take their signature hit, “Wild Thing,” to #1

If there is one song that has been played more times by more bands in more garages than any ever written, it is probably “Louie Louie,” The Kingsmen’s classic 1966 hit. But if any other song warrants a place in the conversation, it would be “Wild Thing,” the three-chord masterpiece that became a #1 hit for The Troggs on July 30, 1966 and instantly took its rightful place in the rock-and-roll canon.





WORLD WAR II

1945

USS Indianapolis torpedoed

On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sinks within minutes in shark-infested waters. Only 316 of the 1,196 men on board survived. However, the Indianapolis had already completed its major mission: the delivery of key components of the atomic bomb that would be dropped a week later at Hiroshima to Tinian Island in the South Pacific.





U.S. PRESIDENTS

1974

Watergate affair approaches climax

Under coercion from the U.S. Supreme Court, President Richard M. Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings—suspected to prove his guilt in the Watergate scandal—to special prosecutor Leon Jaworski. The same day, the House Judiciary Committee voted a third article of impeachment against the president: contempt of Congress in hindering the impeachment process. The previous two impeachment articles voted against Nixon by the committee were obstruction of justice and abuse of presidential powers.





US GOVERNMENT

1619

First legislative assembly in America convenes in Jamestown

In Jamestown, Virginia, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World—the House of Burgesses—convenes in the choir of the town’s church. Earlier that year, the London Company, which had established the Jamestown settlement 12 years before, directed Virginia Governor Sir George Yeardley to summon a “General Assembly” elected by the settlers, with every free adult male voting. Twenty-two representatives from the 11 Jamestown boroughs were chosen, and Master John Pory was appointed the assembly’s speaker. On July 30, the House of Burgesses (an English word for “citizens”) convened for the first time. Its first law, which, like all of its laws, would have to be approved by the London Company, required tobacco to be sold for at least three shillings per pound. Other laws passed during its first six-day session included prohibitions against gambling, drunkenness and idleness, and a measure that made Sabbath observance mandatory.





WORLD WAR II

1943

Hitler gets news of Italy’s imminent defection

On July 30, 1943, Adolf Hitler learns that Axis ally Italy is buying time before negotiating surrender terms with the Allies in light of Mussolini’s fall from power. Hitler had feared that such a turn of events was possible, if not probable. Hitler had come to Italy on July 19 to lecture Il Duce on his failed military leadership—evidence that he knew, even if he was not admitting, that both Mussolini and Italy were about to collapse, leaving the Italian peninsula open to Allied occupation. Despite a half-hearted reassurance from Mussolini that Italy would continue to battle on, Hitler nevertheless began preparing for the prospect of Italy’s surrender to the Allies.





SPORTS

1976

Caitlyn Jenner wins Olympic decathlon

On July 30, 1976, American Caitlyn Jenner—who was competing as Bruce Jenner—wins gold in the men's decathlon at the Montreal Olympics. Jenner's 8,617 points set a world record in the event. The secret to Jenner’s success was preparation. In the 1970s, most decathletes trained with other decathletes. Jenner, however, trained with some of the world’s best athletes in each of the 10 decathlon events.









U.S. PRESIDENTS

1956

President Eisenhower signs “In God We Trust” into law

On July 30, 1956, two years after pushing to have the phrase “under God” inserted into the pledge of allegiance, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a law officially declaring “In God We Trust” to be the nation’s official motto. The law, P.L. 84-140, also mandated that the phrase be printed on all American paper currency. The phrase had been placed on U.S. coins since the Civil War when, according to the historical association of the United States Treasury, religious sentiment reached a peak. Eisenhower’s treasury secretary, George Humphrey, had suggested adding the phrase to paper currency as well.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1999

"The Blair Witch Project" released in theaters

On July 30, 1999, The Blair Witch Project, a low-budget, independent horror film that will become a massive cult hit, is released in U.S. theaters. Shot with shaky, handheld cameras, the documentary-style movie told the story of three student filmmakers who disappeared into the woods and were never heard from again, although their footage was later discovered. With the help of a Web-based viral marketing strategy—a relatively new concept at the time—The Blair Witch Project generated huge buzz over the question of whether or not it was based on a true story. In fact, the story was entirely fake. Fake or not, it didn’t matter at the box office: The Blair Witch Project grossed some $250 million worldwide and was featured on the covers of Newsweek and Time magazines.





1970S

1971

Fighter jet collides with passenger plane

A mid-air collision between a Boeing 727 and a fighter jet in Japan kills 162 people on July 30, 1971. The military plane was flying without radar. All Nippon Airways Flight 58 was traveling from Chitose Airport in Hokkaido to Tokyo, filled largely with members of a group dedicated to the assistance of war victims. Takeoff was uneventful and the plane soon reached 28,000 feet. Cruising over the Japanese Alps, Flight 58 suddenly encountered two military jets.





CRIME

1994

Man charged in murder of Megan Kanka

Jesse Timmendequas is charged with the murder of seven-year-old Megan Kanka in New Jersey. Kanka’s death inspired Megan’s Law, a statute enacted in 1994 requiring that information about convicted sex felons be available to the public. Versions of Megan’s Law have been passed in many states since her murder.





CIVIL WAR

1864

Union forces stopped at the Battle of the Crater

On July 30, 1864, at the Battle of the Crater, the Union’s ingenious attempt to break the Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia, by blowing up a tunnel that had been dug under the Rebel trenches fails. Although the explosion created a gap in the Confederate defenses, a poorly planned Yankee attack wasted the effort and the result was an eight-month continuation of the siege.





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

2003

Last classic VW Beetle rolls off the line

On July 30, 2003, the last of 21,529,464 Volkswagen Beetles built since World War II rolls off the production line at Volkswagen’s plant in Puebla, Mexico. One of a 3,000-unit final edition, the baby-blue vehicle was sent to a museum in Wolfsburg, Germany, where Volkswagen is headquartered.

TODAY IN HISTORY


NASA created

The U.S. Congress passes legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America’s activities in space, on July 29, 1958. NASA has since sponsored space expeditions, both human and mechanical, that have yielded vital information about the solar system and universe. It has also launched numerous earth-orbiting satellites that have been instrumental in everything from weather forecasting to navigation to global communications.

NASA was created in response to the Soviet Union’s October 4, 1957 launch of its first satellite, Sputnik I. The 183-pound, basketball-sized satellite orbited the earth in 98 minutes. The Sputnik launch caught Americans by surprise and sparked fears that the Soviets might also be capable of sending missiles with nuclear weapons from Europe to America. The United States prided itself on being at the forefront of technology, and, embarrassed, immediately began developing a response, signaling the start of the U.S.-Soviet space race.

On November 3, 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik II, which carried a dog named Laika. In December, America attempted to launch a satellite of its own, called Vanguard, but it exploded shortly after takeoff. On January 31, 1958, things went better with Explorer I, the first U.S. satellite to successfully orbit the earth. In July of that year, Congress passed legislation officially establishing NASA from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and other government agencies, and confirming the country’s commitment to winning the space race. In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy declared that America should put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. On July 20, 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 mission achieved that goal and made history when astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, famously declaring “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

NASA has continued to make great advances in space exploration since the first moonwalk, including playing a major part in the construction of the International Space Station. The agency has also suffered tragic setbacks, however, such as the disasters that killed the crews of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986 and the Columbia space shuttle in 2003.







WORLD WAR II

1921

Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party

On July 29, 1921, Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. Under Hitler, the Nazi Party grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany as a totalitarian state from 1933 to 1945. Hitler’s early years did not seem to predict his rise as a political leader. Born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, Austria, he was a poor student and never graduated from high school. During World War I, he joined a Bavarian regiment of the German army and was considered a brave soldier; however, his commanders felt he lacked leadership potential and never promoted him beyond corporal.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1967

The Doors score their first #1 hit with “Light My Fire”

By the beginning of 1967, The Doors were well-established members of the Los Angeles music scene. As the house band at the Whiskey a Go Go on the Sunset Strip, they had built a large local following and strong industry buzz, and out on the road, they were fast becoming known as a band that might typically receive third billing, but could blow better-known groups like The Young Rascals and The Grateful Dead off the stage. It would have been poetic if their popular breakthrough had come via their now-classic debut single, “Break On Through,” but that record failed to make the national sales charts despite the efforts of Jim Morrison and his bandmates to fuel the song’s popularity by repeatedly calling in requests for it to local L.A. radio stations. It was the follow-up release from their debut album, The Doors, which would become their first bona fide smash. “Light My Fire,” which earned the top spot in the Billboard Hot 100 on July 29, 1967, transformed The Doors from cult favorites of the rock cognoscenti into international pop stars and avatars of the '60s counterculture.





EXPLORATION

1588

Spanish Armada defeated

Off the coast of Gravelines, France, Spain’s so-called “Invincible Armada” is defeated by an English naval force under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake. After eight hours of furious fighting, a change in wind direction prompted the Spanish to break off from the battle and retreat toward the North Sea. Its hopes of invasion crushed, the remnants of the Spanish Armada began a long and difficult journey back to Spain.





GREAT BRITAIN

1981

Prince Charles marries Lady Diana

Nearly one billion television viewers in 74 countries tune in to witness the marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, to Lady Diana Spencer, a young English schoolteacher. Married in a grand ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in the presence of 2,650 guests, the couple’s romance was for the moment the envy of the world. Their first child, Prince William, was born in 1982, and their second, Prince Harry, in 1984.





CRIME

1900

Italian American assassinates Italian king

In Monza, Italy, King Umberto I is shot to death by Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist who resided in America before returning to his homeland to murder the king. Crowned in 1878, King Umberto became increasingly authoritarian in the late 19th century.





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1909

General Motors buys Cadillac

On July 29, 1909, the newly formed General Motors Corporation (GM) acquires the country’s leading luxury automaker, the Cadillac Automobile Company, for $4.5 million. Cadillac was founded out of the ruins of automotive pioneer Henry Ford’s second failed company (his third effort, the Ford Motor Company, finally succeeded). When the shareholders of the defunct Henry Ford Company called in Detroit machinist Henry Leland to assess the company’s assets for their planned sale, Leland convinced them to stay in business. His idea was to combine Ford’s latest chassis (frame) with a single-cylinder engine developed by Oldsmobile, another early automaker. To that end, the Cadillac Car Company (named for the French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Cadillac, who founded the city of Detroit in 1701) was founded in August 1902. Leland introduced the first Cadillac–priced at $850–at the New York Auto Show the following year.





WORLD WAR I

1914

Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Czar Nicholas of Russia exchange telegrams

In the early hours of July 29, 1914, Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, begin a frantic exchange of telegrams regarding the newly erupted war in the Balkan region and the possibility of its escalation into a general European war.





VIETNAM WAR

1965

101st Airborne Division arrives in Vietnam

The first 4,000 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay. They made a demonstration jump immediately after arriving, observed by Gen. William Westmoreland and outgoing Ambassador (formerly General) Maxwell Taylor.





SPORTS

1996

Carl Lewis wins fourth consecutive long jump at 35

On July 29, 1996, track and field legend Carl Lewis wins his fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the long jump. It was the ninth and final Olympic gold of his storied career. Frederick Carlton Lewis was born July 11, 1961, in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in a middle-class community in New Jersey. As a teenager, Lewis met Olympic champion Jesse Owens, who became his hero. He participated in track and field, but was undersized until high school, when he grew the long legs that help a sprinter cover ground and underwent a huge growth spurt that forced him to walk with crutches for three months while he fine-tuned his gait. Once fully developed at 6 feet 2 inches tall, Lewis set a national high school record in the long jump with a 26-foot-8-inch leap.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

2000

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston wed

On July 29, 2000, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, one of Hollywood’s highest-profile couples, marry at the Malibu, California, estate of the producer Marcy Carsey (The Cosby Show). The two actors reportedly met on a blind date in 1998 and quickly became favorites of the tabloid media once they went public with their romance. Their wedding cost an estimated $1 million and featured tight security to keep out the paparazzi.





VIETNAM WAR

1967

Rocket causes deadly fire on aircraft carrier

A fire on a United States Navy carrier stationed off the coast of Vietnam kills 134 service members on July 29, 1967. The deadly fire on the USS Forrestal began with the accidental launch of a rocket. During the Vietnam War, the USS Forrestal was often stationed off the coast of North Vietnam, conducting combat operations. On the morning of July 29, the ship was preparing to attack when a rocket from one of its own F-4 Phantom jet fighters was accidentally launched. The rocket streaked across the deck and hit a parked A-4 Skyhawk jet. The Skyhawk, which was waiting to take off, was piloted by John McCain, the future senator from Arizona.





CRIME

1976

Son of Sam terrorizes New York

The so-called “Son of Sam” pulls a gun from a paper bag and fires five shots at Donna Lauria and Jody Valenti of the Bronx while they are sitting in a car, talking. Lauria died and Valenti was seriously wounded in the first in a series of shootings by the serial killer, who terrorized New York City over the course of the next year.





CIVIL WAR

1862

Confederate spy Belle Boyd is captured

Confederate spy Marie Isabella “Belle” Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. It was the first of three arrests for this skilled spy who provided crucial information to the Confederates during the war.

TODAY IN HISTORY


14th Amendment adopted

Following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states, the 14th Amendment, granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including formerly enslaved people—is officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Secretary of State William Seward issues a proclamation certifying the amendment.

Two years after the Civil War, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts, where new state governments, based on universal manhood suffrage, were to be established. Thus began the period known as Radical Reconstruction, which saw the 14th Amendment, which had been passed by Congress in 1866, ratified in July 1868. The amendment resolved pre-Civil War questions of African American citizenship by stating that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.” The amendment then reaffirmed the privileges and rights of all citizens, and granted all these citizens the “equal protection of the laws.”

In the decades after its adoption, the equal protection clause was cited by a number of African American activists who argued that racial segregation denied them the equal protection of law. However, in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that states could constitutionally provide segregated facilities for African Americans, so long as they were equal to those afforded white persons. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which announced federal toleration of the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine, was eventually used to justify segregating all public facilities, including railroad cars, restaurants, hospitals and schools. However, “colored” facilities were never equal to their white counterparts, and African Americans suffered through decades of debilitating discrimination in the South and elsewhere. In 1954, Plessy v. Ferguson was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.









WOMEN’S HISTORY

2016

Hillary Clinton accepts Democratic nomination for president, becoming first woman to lead a major U.S. political party

95 years after women were first granted the right to vote, on July 28, 2016, former Secretary of State, Senator and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton makes history by accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president, becoming the first woman to lead a major U.S. political party. The Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia formally nominated Clinton two days earlier, with South Dakota casting 15 votes to put Clinton over the threshold of 2,382 required delegates.In her acceptance speech on the night of July 28, Clinton acknowledged the historic nature of her nomination.






NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

1976

One of the worst earthquakes in modern history destroys Chinese city

At 3:42 a.m., an earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitude on the Richter scale flattens Tangshan, a Chinese industrial city with a population of about one million people. As almost everyone was asleep in their beds, instead of outside in the relative safety of the streets, the quake was especially costly in terms of human life. An estimated 242,000 people in Tangshan and surrounding areas were killed, making the earthquake one of the deadliest in recorded history, surpassed only by the 300,000 who died in the Calcutta earthquake in 1737, and the 830,000 thought to have perished in China’s Shaanxi province in 1556.





GREAT DEPRESSION

1932

Bonus Marchers evicted by U.S. Army

During the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover orders the U.S. Army under General Douglas MacArthur to evict by force the Bonus Marchers from the nation’s capital. Two months before, the so-called “Bonus Expeditionary Force,” a group of some 1,000 World War I veterans bonus certificates, had arrived in Washington, D.C. Most of the marchers were unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits. In June, other veteran groups spontaneously made their way to the nation’s capital, swelling the Bonus Marchers to nearly 20,000 strong. Camping in vacant government buildings and in open fields made available by District of Columbia Police Chief Pelham D. Glassford, they demanded passage of the veterans’ payment bill introduced by Representative Wright Patman.





VIETNAM WAR

1965

President Johnson announces more troops to Vietnam

President Lyndon B. Johnson announces that he has ordered an increase in U.S. military forces in Vietnam, from the present 75,000 to 125,000. Johnson also said that he would order additional increases if necessary. He pointed out that to fill the increase in military manpower needs, the monthly draft calls would be raised from 17,000 to 35,000. At the same time, Johnson reaffirmed U.S. readiness to seek a negotiated end to the war, and appealed to the United Nations and any of its member states to help further this goal.





U.S. PRESIDENTS

1929

Future first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy is born

On July 28, 1929, President John F. Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, is born into a prominent New York family. Jacqueline, or “Jackie” as she was called, grew up an avid horsewoman and reader. In 1951, after graduating from George Washington University, Jackie toured Europe with her sister. That fall, she returned to the U.S. to begin her first job as the Washington Times-Herald‘s “Inquiring Camera Girl.” Her assignment was to roam the streets of Washington, D.C., asking strangers “man on the street” questions and then snapping their picture for publication. Shortly after her return to the capital, at a dinner party in Georgetown, she met a young, handsome senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy. They dated over the next two years, and in May 1953, Kennedy proposed. Jackie accepted and the couple married on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary’s Church in Newport, Rhode Island. The Kennedys then settled in Washington, D.C., where Kennedy embarked on a meteoric political career. He served as a senator from Massachusetts from 1953 until he was elected president of the United States in 1961. At the time, he and Jackie were the youngest couple ever to reside in the White House.





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1978

"Animal House" released in theaters

On July 28, 1978, National Lampoon’s Animal House, a movie spoof about 1960s college fraternities starring John Belushi, opens in U.S. theaters. Produced with an estimated budget of $3 million, Animal House became a huge, multi-million-dollar box-office hit, spawned a slew of cinematic imitations and became part of pop-culture history with such memorable lines as “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”





NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

1945

Plane crashes into Empire State Building

A United States military plane crashes into the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945, killing 14 people. The freak accident was caused by heavy fog. The B-25 Mitchell bomber, with two pilots and one passenger aboard, was flying from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. As it came into the metropolitan area on that Saturday morning, the fog was particularly thick. Air-traffic controllers instructed the plane to fly to Newark Airport instead.





WORLD WAR II

1943

Stalin issues Order No. 227—outlawing cowards

On July 28, 1942, Joseph Stalin, premier and dictator of the Soviet Union, issues Order No. 227, what came to be known as the “Not one step backward” order, in light of German advances into Russian territory. The order declared, “Panic makers and cowards must be liquidated on the spot. Not one step backward without orders from higher headquarters! Commanders…who abandon a position without an order from higher headquarters are traitors to the Motherland.”





WORLD WAR I

1914

Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia

On July 28, 1914, one month to the day after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, effectively beginning the First World War. Threatened by Serbian ambition in the tumultuous Balkans region of Europe, Austria-Hungary determined that the proper response to the assassinations was to prepare for a possible military invasion of Serbia. After securing the unconditional support of its powerful ally, Germany, Austria-Hungary presented Serbia with a rigid ultimatum on July 23, 1914, demanding, among other things, that all anti-Austrian propaganda within Serbia be suppressed, and that Austria-Hungary be allowed to conduct its own investigation into the archduke’s killing. Though Serbia effectively accepted all of Austria’s demands except for one, the Austrian government broke diplomatic relations with the other country on July 25 and went ahead with military preparedness measures. Meanwhile, alerted to the impending crisis, Russia—Serbia’s own mighty supporter in the Balkans—began its own initial steps towards military mobilization against Austria.