Month: August 2023 (Page 2 of 4)

On Aug. 22, 1485, England’s King Richard III was killed, ending the War of the Roses.

In 1846, Gen. Stephen W. Kearny proclaimed all of New Mexico a territory of the United States.

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, which remained under Japanese control until World War II ended.

In 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war against Belgium.

In 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.

In 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).

In 1970, Creedence Clearwater Revival started a nine-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with their fifth studio album Cosmo’s Factory. The name of the album comes from the warehouse in Berkeley where the band rehearsed. Bandleader John Fogerty was so insistent on practicing (nearly every day) that drummer Doug “Cosmo” Clifford began referring to the place as “the factory”.

In 1989, Black Panthers co-founder Huey P. Newton was shot to death in Oakland, California.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed welfare legislation ending guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanding work from recipients.

In 2003, Alabama’s chief justice, Roy Moore, was suspended for his refusal to obey a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of his courthouse.

On Aug. 21, 1831, Nat Turner launched a violent slave rebellion in Virginia.

In 1897, Ransom Eli Olds of Lansing, Michigan, founds Olds Motors Works—which will later become Oldsmobile.

In 1911, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris.

In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order making Hawaii the 50th state.

In 1961, Jomo Kenyatta, leader of the Kenyan independence movement, is released by British colonial authorities after nearly nine years of imprisonment and detention.

Also in 1961, Tamla Records released the Marvelettes first single, ‘Please Mr. Postman’. The song went on to sell over a million copies and become the group’s biggest hit, reaching the top of both the Billboard Pop and R&B charts. The song is notable as the first Motown song to reach the No.1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart.

In 1980, animal rights advocates Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco found People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. 

In 1992, an 11-day siege began at the cabin of white separatist Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, as government agents tried to arrest Weaver.

In 1993, in a serious setback for NASA, engineers lost contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft as it was about to reach the red planet on a $980 million mission.

In 2008, drummer Buddy Harman died of congestive heart failure, aged 79. Worked with Elvis Presley (‘Little Sister’), Patsy Cline (‘Crazy’), Roy Orbison (‘Pretty Woman’), Johnny Cash (‘Ring Of Fire’), Tammy Wynette (‘Stand By Your Man’). Harman was the first house drummer for The Grand Ole Opry and can be heard on over 18,000 recordings.

In 2013, legendary concert promoter Sid Bernstein, best known for booking The Beatles at Carnegie Hall and later Shea Stadium, died at the age of 95. Bernstein changed the American music scene in the 1960s by bringing The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Herman’s Hermits, The Moody Blues, and The Kinks to America. He was the first impresario to organise rock concerts at sports stadiums.

In 2015, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, college student Anthony Sadler and British businessman Chris Norman tackled and disarmed a gunman on a high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris.

On Aug.20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrive in the British colony of Virginia and are then bought by English colonists.

In 1882, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” had its premiere in Moscow.

In 1945, 11 days after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, Brooklyn Dodgers utility player Tommy Brown homers to drive in his team’s only run in an 11-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In 1953, the Soviet Union acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act, a nearly $1 billion anti-poverty meassure.

In 1968, during the night, approximately 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring”—a brief period of liberalization in the communist country.

In 1975, Viking 1, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Mars.

In 1988, a cease-fire in the war between Iraq and Iran went into effect.

In 2017, actor, comic and longtime telethon host Jerry Lewis died of heart disease in Las Vegas at the age of 91.

In 2019, President Donald Trump abruptly canceled an upcoming trip to Denmark, which owns Greenland, after the Danish prime minister dismissed the idea of the United States purchasing the mostly frozen island.

On Aug. 19, 1812, the USS Constitution defeated the HMS Guerriere during the War of 1812, earning the nickname “Old Ironsides.”

In 1848, the New York Herald reported the discovery of gold in California.In 1909, the first automobile races were run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway; the winner of the first event was Louis Schwitzer, who drove a car twice around the track at an average speed of 57.4 mph.

In 1934, a plebiscite in Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler.

In 1955, torrential rains caused by Hurricane Diane resulted in severe flooding in the northeastern U.S.

In 2020, Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president in a speech to the party’ virtual convention, cementing her place as the first Black woman on a major party ticket.

On August 18,1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing American women’s right to vote, was ratified.

In 1954, during the Eisenhower administration, Assistant Secretary of Labor James Ernest Wilkins became the first Black official to attend a meeting of the president’s Cabinet.

In 1958, the novel “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov was published in New York by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

In 1963, James Meredith became the first Black student to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, New York, wound to a close after three nights with a mid-morning set by Jimi Hendrix.

In 1977, the Police made their live debut as a three-piece band when they played at Rebecca’s Birmingham, England. The Police became globally popular in the late 1970s and are generally regarded as one of the first New Wave groups to achieve mainstream success, playing a style of rock that was influenced by punk, reggae, and jazz.

In 2017, President Donald Trump’s top White House strategist, Steve Bannon, was forced out of his post by Trump.

On August 17, 1862, Minnesota erupts in violence as desperate Dakota Indians attack white settlements along the Minnesota River. The Dakota were eventually overwhelmed by the U.S. military six weeks later.

In 1969. the final day of the 3 day Woodstock Festival took place at Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York. Acts who appeared included Crosby, Stills Nash & Young, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Ten Years After, John Sebastian, Sha Na Na, Joe Cocker, Country Joe and the Fish, The Band, Ten Years After, Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Over 186,000 tickets had been sold but on the first day the flimsy fences and ticket barriers had come down. Organisers announced the concert would be a free event, prompting thousands more to head for the concert.

In 1978, the first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight ended as Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed their Double Eagle II outside Paris.

In 1982, the first commercially produced compact discs, a recording of ABBA’s “The Visitors,” were pressed.

In 1983, lyricist Ira Gershwin died in Beverly Hills at age 86.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton gave testimony concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; he then delivered a TV address in which he denied committing perjury, admitted his relationship with Lewinsky was “wrong,” and criticized Kenneth Starr’s investigation.

In 2016, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump announced a shake-up of his campaign leadership, naming Steve Bannon of the conservative Breitbart News website as chief executive officer.

On Aug. 16, 1777, American forces won the Battle of Bennington in what was considered a turning point of the Revolutionary War.

In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation 86, which prohibited the states of the Union from engaging in commercial trade with states that were in rebellion — i.e., the Confederacy.

In 1954, Sports Illustrated was first published by Time Inc.

In 1962, the Beatles fired their original drummer Pete Best, replacing him with Ringo Starr.

In 1977, Music icon Elvis Presley dies in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 42. 

In 1984, after close to 30 hours of deliberation, a jury of six men and six women unanimously acquits the former automaker John Z. DeLorean of eight counts of drug trafficking in Los Angeles, California.

In 2014, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, where police and protesters repeatedly clashed in the week since a Black teenager was shot to death by a white police officer.

In 2018, Aretha Franklin, the undisputed “Queen of Soul,” died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76. During her career she scored over 15 Top 40 hits and won 18 Grammy Awards. Hits include the 1967 US No.1 & UK No.10 single ‘Respect’, the 1968 UK No.4 single ‘I Say A Little Prayer’ and the 1987 UK No.1 single with George Michael, ‘I Knew You Were Waiting’. In 2010 Rolling Stone magazine ranked her number one on their list of the ‘100 Greatest Singers of All Time’.

On Aug. 15, 1057, Macbeth, King of Scots, was killed in battle by the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain.

In 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened as the SS Ancon crossed the waterway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

In 1947, India became independent after some 200 years of British rule.

In 1969, Woodstock Festival was held on Max Yasgur’s 600 acre farm in Bethel outside New York. Attended by over 400,000 people, the event featured, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Santana, The Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, Canned Heat, Joan Baez, Melanie, Ten Years After, Sly and the Family Stone, Johnny Winter, Jefferson Airplane, Ravi Shanker, Country Joe and the Fish, Blood Sweat and Tears, Arlo Guthrie, and Joe Cocker. During the three days there were three deaths, two births and four miscarriages.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon announced a 90-day freeze on wages, prices and rents.

In 1991, Paul Simon played a free concert in New York’s Central Park before an audience of three quarters of a million people.

In 1998, 29 people were killed by a car bomb that tore apart the center of Omagh, Northern Ireland; a splinter group calling itself the Real IRA claimed responsibility.

On Aug. 14, 1848, the U.S. designated land the Oregon Territory.

In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Social Security Act, which guaranteed an income for the unemployed and retirees.

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman announced Imperial Japan had surrendered, ending the war.

In 1961, unhappy with drummer Pete Best’s role in The Beatles Brian Epstein and the other three members decided to sack him. Best played his last gig the following night at The Cavern, Liverpool. Ringo Starr received a telephone call from John Lennon, asking him to join The Beatles. On August 18, appeared as a member of The Beatles for the first time.

In 1973, U.S. bombing of Cambodia came to a halt.

In 2003, a major outage knocked out power across the eastern United States and parts of Canada. Beginning at 4:10 p.m. EST, 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.

In 2015, the American flag rose over the newly reopened U.S. Embassy in Cuba after a half century of often-hostile relations.

On Aug. 13, 1846, the American flag was raised in Los Angeles.

In 1889, William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut, received a patent for a coin-operated telephone.

In 1910, Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, died in London at age 90.

In 1942, Walt Disney’s animated feature “Bambi” had its U.S. premiere at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

In 1961, shortly after midnight East German soldiers begin laying down barbed wire and bricks as a barrier between Soviet-controlled East Berlin and the democratic western section of the city.

In 1964, the Supremes recorded ‘Baby Love’, written and produced by Motown’s main production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song went on to be the group’s first UK No.1 and second US chart topper. It was also the second of five Supremes songs in a row to go to No.1 in the United States.

In 2004, TV chef Julia Child died in Montecito, California, two days short of her 92nd birthday.