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Today in History ~ August 26
Fire Festival: Japan
A fire festival is held in Yoshida, at the foot of Mt. Fuji, to commemorate the climbing season's close.
Events55BC - Julius Caesar invaded Britain on this day in 55 BC, and won control of the island. Roman ruins are still standing throughout Britain. Julius was the first of a dozen caesars. The words "kaiser" and "czar" are both forms of the same word and the same title.
580 - Chinese invent toilet paper
1346 - Battle at Crecy - During the Hundred Years War, King Edward III's small English army annihilated a much larger French force under King Philip VI at the Battle of Creche in Normandy. The battle, which saw an early use of the innovative and deadly longbow by the English, is regarded as one of the most decisive in history. [H]
1648 - People's uprising against Anna of Austria & Cardinal Mazarin
1789 - The French National Assembly approved "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen." The document, written by the Marquis de Lafayette, with aid from his friend Thomas Jefferson, established a human rights foundation for future generations.
1791 - John Fitch granted US patent for his working steamboat
1838 - Ralph Waldo Emerson met influential British writer Thomas Carlyle, with whom he would correspond for 38 years. Carlyle and the English romantic poets would have an important effect on Emerson's work.
1839 - Slave ship Amistad Captured off Long Island. [H]
1843 - Charles Thurber patents a typewriter
1846 - "Elijah" premiered at the Birmingham Festival, England.
1863 - Battle of Rocky Gap WV (White Sulphur Springs)
1873 - The first public school for kindergarten in the US was opened in St.Louis, Missouri. The founder of the kindergarten movement was German educator Friedrich Froebel, who opened the first kindergarten in Blankenburg, Germany, in 1837. Froebel's main method of education was spontaneous play and intimacy with nature.
1874 - 16 blacks lynched in Tennessee
1883 - Krakatoa erupts with increasingly large explosions kills 36,000 [H]
1907 - Harry Houdini escapes from chains underwater at Aquatic Park in 57 sec
1920 - American women win the right to vote as the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution takes effect. This happened more than 50 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and more than 100 years after the US Constitution was adopted. [H]
1929 - 1st US roller coaster built
1937 - Pumping to build Treasure Island in SF Bay is finished
1939 - The first televised major league baseball games were shown on experimental station W2XBS. A double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. (The Reds won the first game, 5-to-2; the Dodgers won the second, 6-to-1.)
1942 - 7,000 Jews are rounded up in Vichy France
1942 - Japanese troops land on New Guinea, Milne Bay
1942 - Russian counter offensive begins in Moscow
1944 - US 12th Army Corps crosses river Seine East of Paris
1944 - Charles de Gaulle marched from the Arc de Triomphe to Notre Dame.
1945 - Japanese diplomats board Missouri to receive instructions on Japan's surrender at the end of WW II
1946 - George Orwell publishes "Animal Farm"
1947- Don Bankhead became the first pitcher of color in major league baseball.
1957 - The Soviet Union announced it had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile. [H]
1961 - The official International Hockey Hall of Fame opened in Toronto.
1968 - Thousands of antiwar demonstrators took to Chicago's streets to protest the Vietnam War during the Democratic National Convention. [H]
1972 - The summer Olympics games opened in Munich, West Germany.
1973 - U of Tx (Arlington) is 1st accredited school to offer belly dancing
1975 - Venice Stops Sinking into Sea. The ancient city of Venice was built on 118 small islands. By the early 1960s, rising seawater and floods threatened Venice. Scientists determined that Venice was sinking, and that much of the city would disappear if swift measures were not taken. An international plan began to show significant results on August 26, 1975.
1978 - Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice becomes the 263rd pope and chose the name John Paul I. He chose this name in honor of his two predecessors, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul XI. He died just 33 days later...and HIS successor honored HIM by declaring himself John Paul the Second.
1981 - Voyager 2 takes photo's of Saturn's moon Titan
1985 - French government claims no knowledge of assault on Rainbow Warrior
1992 - Hurricane Andrew's deadly winds roared ashore in Louisiana bayou country
1992 - A judge in Washington, D.C., declared a mistrial in the case against Clair George, the highest-ranking CIA official to be tried in the Iran-Contra scandal.
1992 - President Bush announced a ban on Iraqi military flights over southern Iraq to protect the Shiite Muslims. He said any planes that violate the order would be shot down by U.S.-led coalition forces.
1996 - A court in South Korea sentenced former president Chun Doo Hwan to death for the coup that put him in power.
1998 - William Ritter resigned as a U.S. weapons inspector to Iraq. He said the failure to be more aggressive in the inspections constituted a surrender to the Iraqi leadership.
1998 - Attorney General Janet Reno asked for a 90-day preliminary investigation into alleged campaign fund-raising phone calls Vice President Gore made from the White House. Such calls would violate a 1883 law.
2001 - The Tokyo Kitasuna beat Apopka, Fla., 2-1 to win the Little League championship in South Williamsport, Pa.
Birthdays Today
1740 - Joseph Montgolfier, France, aeronaut (ballooning)
1743 - Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, Paris, father of modern chemistry (Oxygen)
1819 - Albert "Bertie" von Saxon-Coburg-Gotha, husband of queen Victoria
1838 - John Wilkes Booth (actor, assassin: shot and killed U.S. President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC)
1850 - Charles Richet, French physiologist (anaphylaxis-Nobel 1913)
1873 - Lee De Forest, Council Bluffs, inventor (Audion vacuum (radio tube)
1884 - Earl Biggers, author ("Charlie Chan" detective series)
1894 - Sparky Adams (baseball)
1904 - Christopher W Bradshaw-Isherwood, Brit/US writer (Goodbye to Berlin)
1906 - Albert B Sabin, Russia, US microbiologist (oral polio vaccine)
1915 - Gre [Gerarda D] Brouwenstijn, Dutch opera soprano
1915 - Jim Davis (actor: Inferno in Paradise, Don't Look Back: The Story of Leroy "Satchel" Page, Little Big Horn, The Outcast)
1919 - Ronny Graham (singer, actor: Chico and the Man, The New Bill Cosby Show, The Hudson Brothers Show, The Bob Crane Show)
1920 - Georgia Gibbs (Fredda Lipson or Gibson) ('Her Nibs': singer Tweedle Dee, Dance With Me Henry [Wallflower], Kiss of Fire, Seven Lonely Days)
1921 - Ben Bradlee, Boston, editor/journalist/executive (Washington Post)
1922 - Irving Levine (broadcast journalist; author: Main Street Italy)
1924 - Alex Kellner (baseball)
1925 - Jan Clayton (actress: Lassie, Pantomime Quiz)
1934 - Tommy Heinsohn (Basketball Hall of Famer: Boston Celtics: Rookie of the Year [1956-57], NBA Coach of the Year [1973])
1935 - Geraldine Ferraro, (Rep-D-NY) 1st female dem VP candidate (1984)
1935 - James Hylton (auto racer)
1936 - Mike Farmer (basketball)
1937 - Don Bowman (comedian, entertainer: Still Fighting Mental Health, Poor Old Ugly Gladys Jones, Giddyup Do-nut, Chet Atkins Make Me a Star)
1939 - Bill White (hockey)
1942 - Vic Dana (singer: Red Roses for a Blue Lady)
1946 - Swede Savage (auto racer)
1949 - Bob Cowsill (singer: group: The Cowsills: The Rain, the Park and Other Things)
1949 - Larron Jackson (football)
1949 - Rod Stackhouse (baseball)
1957 - Alex Trevino (baseball)
1960 - Branford Marsalis (musician: saxophone: bandleader: The Tonight Show; toured with Sting)
1980 - Macaulay Culkin (actor: Home Alone series, Getting Even with Dad, George Balanchine's The Nutcracker, The Good Son, My Girl, Uncle Buck, Only the Lonely, The Pagemaster, Richie Rich)
Famous deaths
1661 - Louis Couperin, composer,
1723 - Thonis van Leeuwenhoek, biologist/inventor (microscope), dies at 90
1930 - Lon Chaney, actor (Thunder, Big City, Unholy 3), dies at 47
1945 - Franz Werfel, Czech/German/US poet/writer (Mirror Man), dies at 54
1958 - Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer (Fantasia on Themes of Thomas Tallis), dies at 85
1974 - Charles Lindbergh (the first man to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic) died at his home in Hawaii at 72.
1978 - Charles Boyer, actor (Gaslight, Rogues), commits suicide at 78, days after his wife's death)
1981 - Roger Nash Baldwin, founder (ACLU), dies at 97
1986 - Ted Knight, [Tadeus Konopka], actor (Mary Tyler Moore), dies at 62
1989 - Irving Stone, US writer (Love is Eternal, Lust for Life), dies
1995 - Evelyn Wood, speed reading guru, dies at 86
1995 - John Costello, historian, dies at 52
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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