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’.