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Today in History ~ August 19
Penguin Awareness Day
Events1099 - Crusaders beat Saracens in Battle of Ascalon
1263 - King James I of Argon censors Hebrew writing
1399 - King Richard II of England surrenders to his cousin Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV)
1524 - Emperor Charles V's troops besieges Marseille
1561 - Mary Queen of Scots arrives in Leith Scotland to assume throne after spending 13 years in France
1601 - Romanian national hero Michael the Brave was assassinated.
1692 - 5 women strangled to death (hanged) for witchcraft in Salem Mass
1698 - Russian czar Peter the Great begins reign
1772 - Gustav III seizes effective control of Swedish government & restores full power of monarchy, which had been subordinate to parliament since 1720
1812 - US warship Constitution defeats British warship Guerriere and earns her name "Old Ironsides" [H]
1821 - Failed liberal coup against French King Louis XVIII
1826 - Canada Co. chartered to colonize Upper Canada (Ontario).
1839 - Details of Louis Daguerre's 1st practical photographic process are released in Paris
1848 - The New York Herald reports gold discovery in California
1864 - 2nd day of battle at Globe Tavern, Virginia
1895 - John Wesley Hardin killed in Texas [H]
1909 - Indianapolis 500 race track opens
1912 - Percy Aldridge Grainger's "Shepherd's Key," premieres
1914 - Elmer Rice' "On Trial," premieres in NYC
1918 - Irving Berlin's musical "Yip Yip Yaphank," premieres in NYC
1919 - Afghanistan declared independence from the United Kingdom.
1929 - The comedy program "Amos and Andy," starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, made its network radio debut on NBC.
1934 - Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler. (95.7% of German voters) [H]
1936 - Trial against Ljev Kamenev & Grigori Zinovjev because of "Trotskyism" opens in Moscow
1936 - Federico Garcia Lorca was assassinated.
1942 - 1st American offensive in Pacific in WW2, Guadalcanal, Solomon Is
1942 - Gen Paulus orders German 6th Army to conquer Stalingrad
1942 - 5,000 Canadian & 2,000 British soldiers launched a disastrous raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France, suffering about 3,000 casualties.
1943 - Belgian church excommunicates nazi Leon Degrelle
1944 - Last Japanese troops driven out of India
1944 - Paris police strike against Nazi occupiers
1944 - US 90th/Polish 1st Division occupy Chambois Normandy
1947 - J Arens & D van Dorpen synthetise vitamin A
1951 - Bill Veeck (Browns) sends Eddie Gaedel, a 3'7" midget, to pinch-hit
1954 - Ralph J Bunche named undersecretary of UN
1955 - US raises import duty on bicycles 50%
1957 - US Major David Simons reaches 30,933m in a balloon
1960 - Francis Gary Powers convicted (10 years in Soviet prison) of spying by USSR (U-2 incident).
1960 - The Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 5 was launched into Earth's orbit
1963 - NAACP Youth Council begins sit-ins at lunch counters, Oklahoma City
1965 - Auschwitz trials end with only 6 life sentences
1966 - Earthquake strikes Varko Turkey: 2,400 killed
1967 - Beatles' "All You Need is Love," single goes #1
1974 - U.S. Ambassador Rodger P. Davies was fatally wounded by a bullet that penetrated the American embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus, during a protest by Greek Cypriots.
1976 - Pres Gerald R Ford won Republican pres nomination at Kansas City convention
1977 - One of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history hit the eastern Indian Ocean between Australia and Indonesia, rattling buildings in Perth, Australia, 1,000 miles to the south.
1978 - The Double Eagle touched down in Paris, France.
1980 - Willy Russell's "Educating Rita," premieres in London
1981 - 2 US Navy F-14 jet fighters shoot down 2 Soviet-built Libyan SU-22
1984 - Republican convention in Houston nominates Ronald Reagan for president
1986 - Car bomb kills 20 in Tehran Iran
1987 - Michael Ryan went on a shooting rampage in Hungerford, England, killing 16 people.
1991 - Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was detained at his vacation dacha as Janajev & KGB Soviet hard-liners announced to a shocked world that he had been removed from power. (The coup collapsed two days later.)
1992 - NBA star Larry Bird announced his retirement because of a back injury after 13 years with the Boston Celtics.
1993 - Former contra rebels in Nicaragua took a government delegation hostage. In retaliation, ex-Sandinistra soldiers seized political leaders in Managua, the capital. All hostages were released by both groups by Aug. 25.
1993 - Mattel & Fisher Price toys merge
1994 - President Clinton announced he was ending the 28- year U.S. policy of letting Cuban refugees take up U.S. residency if they reached the country.
1995 - After 5 days Shannon Faulkner quits as 1st woman at the Citadel
1995 - Three U.S. negotiators, including US Deputy Asst. Secretary of State Robert Frasure, were killed when their vehicle plunged from a mountain road near Sarajevo, Bosnia
1996 - Former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker was sentenced to four years probation and Susan McDougal sentenced to two years in prison on Whitewater charges.
1997 - Carl Drega, a 67-year-old resident of Colebrook, N.H., shot and killed a part-time judge, two state troopers and a newspaper editor before being killed in a gun battle with police.
2001 - An underground methane and coal dust explosion in Ukraine killed 55 miners.
Birthdays Today
1596 - Elisabeth Stuart, English daughter of James I
1631 - John Dryden, 1st poet laureate of England (All for Love)
1646 - John Flamsteed, 1st astronomer royal of England.
1689 - Samuel Richardson, English novelist (Pamela) (baptized)
1743 - Marie Jeanne Becu comtesse du Barry, last mistress of Louis XV
1785 - Seth Thomas, pioneer in mass production of clocks.
1870 - Bernard Baruch (financier; chairman of War Industries Board [WWI]; representative: UN Atomic Energy Commission; presidential adviser) said "Let us not deceive ourselves: we must elect world peace or world destruction."
1881 - Georges Enescu, Romania, composer (Romanian Dances)
1883 - Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel (fashion designer; perfume creator: Chanel #5)
1892 - Alfred Lunt (Tony Award-winning actor: Quadrille [1955], The Guardsman, Sally of the Sawdust)
1902 - Ogden Nash, Rye NY, humorous poet (I'm a Stranger Here Myself)
1903 - Claude Dauphin (Franc-Nohain) (actor: Les Miserables, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Is Paris Burning, April in Paris)
1903 - James Cozzens (Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist: Guard of Honor [1948]; S.S. San Pedro, The Last Adam, By Love Possessed)
1903 - James Gould Cozzens, US, novelist (1949 Pulitzer-Guard of Honor)
1905 - Fitzhugh Lee, US pilot/vice-admiral (WW II, Navy Cross)
1906 - Philo T Farnsworth, Beaver Utah, inventor (electronic TV)
1907 - June Collyer (Heermance) (actress: A Face in the Fog, The Ghost Walks, Drums of Jeopardy)
1915 - Lardner Ring Jr, Chicago, screenwriter (Woman of the Year)
1915 - Ring Lardner (writer: You Know Me, Haircut & Other Stories)
1919 - Malcolm Forbes, publisher (Forbes Magazine)
1921 - Gene Roddenberry (creator, producer: Star Trek; writer: Have Gun Will Travel) [H]
1931 - Willie Shoemaker (jockey: holds record for most wins in a career: 8,833 out of 40,350 mounts)
1933 - Debra Paget (Griffin) (actress: Tales of Terror, The Ten Commandments, Omar Khayyam, Love Me Tender, Prince Valiant)
1935 - Bobby Richardson (baseball: NY Yankees: World Series record for RBIs in one series [12], and in one game in the series [6] and for most hits in a series [13] - all in 1960)
1938 - Diana Muldaur (actress: A Year in the Life, The Tony Randall Show, The Survivors, Star Trek: The Next Generation, McCloud, L.A. Law, Born Free)
1939 - Ginger (Peter) Baker (musician: trumpet, drums: group: Cream; solo: Toad)
1940 - Jill St. John (Oppenheim) (actress: Diamonds are Forever, Come Blow Your Horn, The Oscar, Burke's Law)
1940 - Johnny Nash (singer: I Can See Clearly Now, Stir It Up, Hold Me Tight, A Very Special Love)
1943 - Billy J. Kramer (William Ashton) (singer: group: The Dakotas: Little Children, Bad to Me)
1946 - William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton, 42nd US Pres (D, 1993-01)
1948 - Gerald McRaney (actor: Simon & Simon, Major Dad, Murder by Moonlight, Blind Vengeance)
1948 - Tipper (Mary) Gore (Aitcheson) (author: Raising PG Kids in an X-rated Society; wife of U.S. Vice President, Al Gore)
1950 - Paul Mitchell (baseball)
1951 - John Deacon (musician: bass: group: Queen: Another One Bites the Dust, Bohemian Rhapsody; score of Flash Gordon)
1952 - Jonathan Frakes (actor, director: television: Star Trek: The Next Generation; film: Star Trek: First Contact)
1955 - Peter Gallagher (actor: Sex, Lies and Videotapes, Short Cuts)
1956 - Adam Arkin (actor: Chicago Hope, Northern Exposure)
1960 - Morten Anderson (football: New Orleans Saints kicker)
1963 - John Stamos (Stamotopoulos) (actor: General Hospital, Full House, You Again?, Born to Ride, The Disappearance of Christina, Never Too Young to Die)
1965 - Kevin Dillon (actor: Platoon, No Escape, A Midnight Clear, The Blob, Remote Control; actor, Matt Dillon's brother)
Famous deaths
1493 - Frederick III of Innsbruck, German Emperor (1440-1493), dies at 77
1580 - Andrea Palladio, architect/writer (Il Redentore, Venice), dies at 71
1601 - Romanian national hero Michael the Brave was assassinated
1753 - [Johann] Balthasar Neumann, German architect, dies at 66
1822 - Melchor Lopez Jimenez, composer, dies at 62
1872 - Eugene-Prosper Prevost, composer, dies at 63
1895 - John Wesley Hardin killed in Texas [H]
1929 - Sergei P Diaghilev, Russia, dance master (Imperial Ballet), dies at 57
1959 - Jacob Epstein, US/English sculptor/painter, dies at 78
1977 - Groucho Marx, NYC, comedian (Marx Bros), dies in LA at 86
1994 - Linus Pauling, Nobel prize scientist (Vitamin C advocate), dies at 93
1994 - Robert Ivanovich Rozhdestvensky, poet, dies at 64
2001 - Donald Woods, a veteran South African newspaper editor and apartheid opponent, died in Sutton, England, at age 67.
2001 - Soul singer Betty Everett died in Beloit, Wis., at age 61.
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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