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Today in History ~ August 17
San Martin Day, celebrated in Argentina.
Independence Day, celebrated in Indonesia
Events1498 - Cardinal Borgia renounces his vows & office to marry a French princess
1577 - Peace of Bergerac: Political rights for Huguenots
1648 - Battle at Preston, Lancashire: Henry Ireton beats Scottish forces
1807 - Robert Fulton's steamboat Clerrmont begins 1st trip up New York's Hudson River on its successful round-trip to Albany.
1835 - Solymon Merrick patents wrench
1836 - British parliament accepts registration of birth/marriage/death
1836 - HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin leave South America for last time
1846 - US fleet officer Robert F Stockton annexes California
1858 - 1st bank in Hawaii opens.
1859 - 1st air mail (in a balloon) took off from Lafayette Ind
1863 - Federal batteries and ships bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor during the Civil War.
1870 - 1st ascent of Mt Rainier, Washington
1876 - Richard Wagner's "Die Gotterdammerung" premieres in Bayreuth
1877 - Billy the Kid kills his first man [H]
1879 - Ferdinand de Lesseps forms French Panama Canal Company
1891 - 1st public bathhouse with showers opens in NYC (People's Bath)
1891 - Electric self-starter for automobile patented
1897 - W B Purvis patents electric railway switch
1903 - Joseph Pulitzer donates $1 million to Columbia U & begins Pulitzer Prizes
1915 - Hurricane strikes Galveston, TX (275 killed)
1915 - Mob lynches Jewish businessman Leo Frank in Cobb County, Ga after death sentence for murder of 13-year-old girl commuted to life
1918 - British troops attack Baku Azerbaijan
1933 - Lou Gehrig breaks record by playing in his 1,308th straight game
1940 - Hitler orders total blockade of Great Britain
1940 - President Franklin Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister William Mackenzie King met in Ogdensburg, N.Y., where they agreed to set up a joint defense commission.
1942 - 1st US/8th Air Force bombs Europe
1942 - Task Force 17 leaves Pearl Harbor under adm George Murray on Hornet
1943 - 498 British bombers attack Peenemunde, site of Werner von Braun's V1 and V2 rockets
1943 - U.S. Lieutenant General George S. Patton and his Seventh Army arrived to Messina before British Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery and his Eighth Army, winning the unofficial "Race to Messina," , completing conquest of Sicily by Allies [H]
1943 - US 8th Air Force loses 60 B-17 bombers in attack on Regensburg/Schweinfurt
1944 - Russian troops arrive at Austria-Prussia border
1945 - Koreas divided on 38th parallel with US occupying the southern area
1945 - Indonesian nationalists declared their independence from the Netherlands.
1948 - Alger Hiss denies ever being a Communist agent
1955 - Hurricane Diane, following hurricane Connie floods Connecticut River killing 190 & doing $1.8 billion damage
1960 - Francis Gary Powers U-2 spy trial opens in Moscow
1962 - East German border guards shot and killed 18-year-old Peter Fechter, who had attempted to cross the Berlin Wall into the western sector.
1969 - 248 people were killed as Hurricane Camille slammed into the Gulf Coast.
1969 - Woodstock Music and Art Fair concluded near Bethel, N.Y.
1973 - Idi Amin expelled all Asians from Uganda.
1978 - The first successful transatlantic balloon flight ended as Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed their Double Eagle Two outside Paris. [H]
1979 - Monty Python's "Life of Brian" premieres
1985 - 1,400 meat packers walk off the job at a Geo A Hormel & Co plant
1985 - Rajiv Gandhi announces Punjab state elections in India
1986 - Bronze pig statue unveiled at Seattle's Pike Place Market
1987 - Ninety-three-year-old Rudolf Hess, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's former deputy, was found hanged to death in Spandau Prison in Berlin, apparently the victim of suicide. In addition to being the sole prisoner in Spandau since 1966, Hess was also the last surviving member of Hitler's inner circle. [H]
1988 - NYC 1st case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (9 year old Bronx boy)
1988 - Republicans nominate George Bush for president
1991 - Australia, a man armed with a machete and a rifle killed seven people at a shopping mall before taking his own life.
1991 - During an outdoor mass in Pecs, Hungary, Pope John Paul II expressed moral support for Croatians, but stopped short of endorsing Croatia's drive for independence. In Strathfield,
1996 - A military cargo plane carrying gear for President Clinton crashed and exploded shortly after takeoff from Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming; eight crew members and a Secret Service employee were killed.
1996 - Africa's first female Head of State appointed; Ruth Sando Perry was appointed president of the Liberian Council of State
1996 - The Reform Party announced Ross Perot had won its nomination to be its first-ever presidential candidate.
1998 - President Bill Clinton acknowledged to prosecutors from the office of Independent Counsel Starr the extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
1999 - More than 17,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Turkey.
2000 - Al Gore accepted the Democratic nomination for president, pledging a "better, fairer, more prosperous America" in the climactic speech of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Shortly before Gore spoke, his running mate, Joseph Lieberman, was nominated by acclamation.
2000 - Word leaked out that Independent Counsel Robert Ray was assembling a new grand jury to investigate President Clinton's conduct in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. (Democrats charged Republicans were behind the release of information, but a federal judge said he was inadvertently responsible for the disclosure.)
Birthdays Today
1786 - Davy Crockett (frontiersman, soldier, defender of the Alamo)
1870 - Frederick Russell, developed 1st successful typhoid fever vaccine
1882 - Samuel Goldwyn (Goldfish) (movie pioneer: the "G" of MGM; Academy Award-winning producer: The Best Years of Our Lives [1946]; All Quiet on the Western Front)
1887 - Marcus Garvey, began back-to-Africa movement among US blacks
1888 - Monty Woolley (actor: As Young As You Feel, Since You Went Away, The Man Who Came to Dinner)
1893 - Mae West (playwright, actress, musician, and comedian. Sextette, Go West, Young Man, I'm No Angel, Every Day's a Holiday, Diamond Lil, Sex; actress: She Done Him Wrong, My Little Chicadee, Myra Breckinridge; autobiography: Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It)
1900 - Quincy Howe (newscaster)
1901 - Ann Harding (Dorothy Gatley) (actress: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Promise to Murder, The Magnificent Yankee)
1909 - Larry Clinton (bandleader: Deep Purple, My Reverie, On a Slow Boat to China; composer: The Dipsy Doodle, Satan Takes a Holiday, Tap Dancer's Nightmare, Dusk in Upper Sandusky)
1916 - Eleanor Steber, opera singer
1921 - Maureen O'Hara (Fitzsimmons) (actress: Miracle on 34th Street, How Green was My Valley, The Quiet Man, The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
1923 - Larry Rivers, [Grossberg], NYC, painter (Wash crossing Delaware-1953)
1929 - Francis Gary Powers, US spy (USSR captures him in 1959 U-2 incident)
1929 - Glenn Corbett (Rothenburg) (actor: Shadow Force, The Stranger, All the Young Men, Shenandoah, The Violent Years, Route 66, The Road West, It's a Man's World, Dallas)
1932 - Duke Pearson (composer, band leader, musician: piano: How Insensitive)
1932 - John (Red) Kerr (basketball: Syracuse Nationals, Philadelphia Warriors, Baltimore Bullets; coach: Chicago Bulls: NBA Coach of the Year [1966]; Phoenix Suns)
1933 - Jim Davenport (baseball)
1937 - Diego Sequi (baseball)
1939 - Chico (Ron) Maki (hockey)
1941 - Boog (John) Powell (baseball: Baltimore Orioles: FB: Baseball Writer's Award [1970])
1943 - Robert De Niro, NYC, Academy Award-winning actor (Bang the Drum Slowly, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull [1980], The Godfather II [1974]; Brazil, The Deer Hunter, The Untouchables, Awakenings, Cape Fear, Frankenstein, Back Draft, Search for Tomorrow; director: Bronx Tale)
1948 - Bill Parsons (baseball)
1949 - Isaiah Robertson (football)
1952 - Guillermo Vilas (tennis champion: Australian Open [1978-79], French open [1977], U.S. Open 1977])
1958 - Belinda Carlisle (musician: guitar, singer: group: The Go-Go's: We Got the Beat, Head Over Heels, Turn to You, Heaven on Earth)
1960 - Sean Penn (actor: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Casualties of War, Shanghai Surprise, We're No Angels, Carlito's Way, Colors, Dead Man Walking)
1970 - Jim Courier (tennis champion: Australian Open [1992, 93], French Open [1991, 92])
Famous deaths
1510 - Edmund Dudley, English treasurer, beheaded
1777 - Giuseppe Scarlatti, composer, dies at 54
1785 - Jonathan Trumbull, US patriot, dies
1850 - Jose Francisco de San Martin, South American revolutionary hero, dies
1880 - Ole Bull, composer, dies at 70
1927 - Horace Alderman, US, murderer, hanged
1969 - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect (November Group), dies at 83
1969 - Philip Blaiberg, after 19 days with artificial heart, dies
1981 - Robert Russell Bennett, US composer/arranger (Oklahoma!), dies at 87
1983 - Ira Gershwin, lyricist, dies in Beverly Hills at 86
1987 - Rudolph Hess, Nazi (46 years in Spandau Prison), commits suicide at 93 [H]
1988 - Franklin D Roosevelt Jr, (Rep-D-NY, 1949-55), dies on 74th birthday
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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