Today in History...

[Shoxthemonkey 1976]

That was the first thought I had when I read Telstar but for the life of me I couldn't remember who the artist was.

Thanks

[HouTex 1850]

1534 Jacques Cartier lands in Canada, claims it for France

1847 Brigham Young and his Mormon followers arrive at Salt Lake City, Utah

1901 O. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank

1943 Operation Gomorrah: RAF begins bombing Hamburg (till 3rd August), creating a firestorm and killing 42,600 people

1969 Apollo 11 returns to Earth

[El Diablo 4232]

1 hour ago, HouTex said:

1901 O. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank

Pretty sure he bought the Austin "Iconoclast" newspaper  from William Cowper Brann. Brann moved to Waco, started another paper, insulted the Baptits and Baylor and got shot dead on a downtown street in a shootout with one of the offended. Sic 'em!  

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

July 25, 1983, at the Wlikada high security prison in Colombo, Sri Lanka, thirty seven Tamil (Hindu) political prisoners were massacred by Sinhalese (Buddhist) criminal inmates.  

This crime was part of escalating violence which had begun on July 23rd, when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam ambushed and killed 13 Sri Lankan army soldiers.  Rioting began the next day in the capital, and by the end of July had spread throughout the whole of the Island.  Over seven days, mobs of Sinhalese Sri Lankans killed somewhere between 400 (as reported by the Sinhalese) and 3,000 (as reported by the Tamils), destroying 8,000 homes, and 5,000 shops.  

150,000 people were left homeless after the riots, which have come to be known as "Black July" (Tamil: கறுப்பு யூலை, translit. Kaṟuppu Yūlai; Sinhalese: කළු ජූලිය Kalu Juliya) and the economic cost of the riots is estimated at $300 million US.

Ethnic strife between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamils (who were more recent immigrants from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu) had been bubbling beneath the surface ever since the end of the colonial period.  Sri Lanka had become independent in 1948, and over the next two decades, an agreement had been carved out slowly and painfully in the Sri Lankan parliament to make Sinhala the official language, but with "reasonable use of Tamil".

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, increasing tension over university admissions quotas, and "standardisation" policies (the equivalent of "English first" in the US) led to increasing economic disfranchisement of many of the island's Tamils.  Finally, in the 1980s, the tension popped, and Sri Lanka had a full-scale civil war on its hands, which lasted for 26 years, until the Sri Lankan Army managed to subdue the Tamil Tigers.  

An estimated 80 to 100 thousand people died in this conflict, and though the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam were, throughout, listed by most nations as a terrorist organization, the grim reality is that the Sinhalese majority were equally guilty of atrocities during the war.  When people are so brazenly and openly fighting about ethnicity, you are simply not going to be able to find "the good guys" because there aren't any.

[El Diablo 4232]

July 26, 1845—174 years ago today—the U.S. flag flew over Texas for the first time when troops under the command of Gen. Zachary Taylor were sent to defend St. Joseph Island, a sand barrier island in present day Aransas County. The troops were dispatched to Texas to protect the state from interference from Mexico after annexation.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

July 26, 1882, Richard Wagner's opera "Parsifal" premiered at the Bayreuther Festspiele ("Bayreuth Festival") in Bayreuth, Germany. Based on "Parzival" -- the 13th century epic poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach -- the production dramatizes the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his quest for the Holy Grail. This was the last completed opera Wagner composed, and it was 25 years in the making, being a work he had given up in his youth, but felt compelled to complete.

Reactions to the production varied, naturally. Since the production company set strict limits on where the opera could be staged, it was for many decades only seen at Bayreuth, and among those who made the trek to see (and hear), critics such as Eduard Hanslick, fellow composers like Hugo Wolf or Gustav Mahler, and conductors such as Felix Weingartner all found the piece moving beyond words. Of course, they were in keeping with very poor company, as it was also the favorite work of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

Personally, I'm not a fan. I agree with Mark Twain, who visited the Festival in 1891, and wrote of the experience:

"I was not able to detect in the vocal parts of Parsifal anything that might with confidence be called rhythm or tune or melody... Singing! It does seem the wrong name to apply to it... In Parsifal there is a hermit named Gurnemanz who stands on the stage in one spot and practices by the hour, while first one and then another of the cast endures what he can of it and then retires to die."

[El Diablo 4232]

July 28th, 1932, federal troops forcibly dispersed the so-called "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans who had gathered in Washington to demand payments they weren't scheduled to receive until 1945. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

[HouTex 1850]

1794 French Revolutionary figure Maximilien Robespierre and 22 other leaders of "the Terror" guillotined to thunderous cheers in Paris

1900 Hamburger created by Louis Lassing in Connecticut

1945 Japanese premier Suzuki disregards US ultimatum to surrender

1945 US Army B-25 crashes into 79th floor of Empire State Bldg, 14 die

1945 Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva arrive on the Pacific island of Tinian with the plutonium core used to assemble the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9

1978 600,000 attend the "Summer Jam" rock festival at Watkins Glen, New York, at the time the largest ever audience at a pop festival

1994 Texas Rangers pitcher Kenny Rogers throws the only perfect game in franchise history, against the California Angels
 

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

July 29th is St. Olaf's Day in most of Scandinavia, but it is celebrated in perhaps the most formalized way in the Faroe Islands, where the day is recognized as Ólavsøkudagur.  Ólavsøka is the name of the several day event of which Ólavsøkudagur is the most important day, and is the biggest summer festival in the islands. 

July 28th, the day before the festival gets underway, there are sculling (rowing) events for which the nation's labor unions have established the tradition of a half-day off from work.  Each year, July 29th is the opening session of the Løgting, the Faroese Parliament. This is not the first event of the Ólavsøka, but it is the focal point of official ceremonies.

The literal meaning of Ólavsøka is "Saint Olaf's Wake" (vigilia sancti Olavi in Latin), commemorating Saint Olaf's death at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030.  Prior to the Christianization of the islands, the summer festival of Løgting was the big summer event in the Faroes.

Góða Ólavsøku! ("Good Olaf's Wake!")

[El Diablo 4232]

July 29, 1867—152 years ago today--Fort Griffin was established on the right bank of the Clear Fork of the Brazos in what’s now Shackleford County as one of a line of defensive frontier forts built from 1867 to 1881 to protect settlers, travelers, buffalo hunters and cowboys during the Texas Indian wars.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

On 7/23/2019 at 8:01 AM, El Diablo said:

July 23rd 1962, the first public TV transmissions over Telstar 1 took place during a special program featuring live shots beamed from the United States to Europe, and vice versa.

Space! The final frontier!

Mmmmmm German scat porn finally landed on Plymouth Rock..............  at last

[HouTex 1850]

1905 US Secretary of State William Howard Taft makes secret agreement with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura agreeing to Japanese free rein in Korea in return for non-interference with the US in the Philippines

1921 Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party

1943 1 million inhabitants flee Hamburg

1944 Allied air force bomb Germany for 6 hours

1949 Moscow ends the blockade of West Berlin

1954 Publication of "Fellowship of the Ring" 1st volume of "Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien published by George Allen and Unwin in London

1976 In New York City, the "Son of Sam" kills one person and seriously wounds another in first of a series of attacks

1986 NY jury rules NFL violated antitrust laws, awards USFL $1 in damages

1994 200,000 Muslims demand the death of feminist writer Taslima Nasrin in Bangladesh

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

On July 30, 1676, Nathaniel Bacon issued the "Declaration of the People of Virginia" and thus began the unsuccessful "Bacon's Rebellion" -- there were a handful of such uprisings predating the Revolutionary War by a good century; Bacon's revolt was the first such frontier revolt.

Virginia Governor William Berkeley, appointed by the crown, had been dismissive of the political challenges posed by the difficulties of expanding into the wild western frontier, and numerous landholders such as Bacon were excluded from fur trade with natives. Adding insult to injury, the government provided no assistance during attacks by the Doeg, an Algonquin tribe who ran roughshod over plantations outside the reach of the colonial militia.

A somewhat similar uprising in Maryland followed a few years later, for many of the same reasons. The pattern was set by the British authorities after Bacon's followers chased Berkeley out of Jamestown and basically torched the colonial capital -- the rebellion was crushed by English naval forces, and Virginia didn't rise against the crown again until its delegation to the Continental Congress proved instrumental in 1775 and 1776 in fomenting the final break with the British empire. 

Bacon's Rebellion was not aided by the fact that Bacon himself died of dysentery shortly after the fighting started. It wasn't the first revolt to crap out, and it would not be the last.

[HouTex 1850]

1619 House of Burgesses Virginia forms, 1st elective American governing body

1945 After delivering the Atomic Bomb across the Pacific, the cruiser USS Indianapolis is torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I-58. 880 of the crew died, many after being attacked by sharks.

1963 British spy Kim Philby found in Moscow

1971 George Harrison releases "Bangladesh"

1971 US Apollo 15 (Scott & Irwin) lands on Mare Imbrium on the Moon

1975 US Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa disappears in suburban Detroit; Hoffa legally declared dead in 1982

1980 Houston Astro pitcher J R Richard suffers a stroke

2016 Air balloon crashes into power lines near Lockhart, Texas, killing all 16 on board

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

the mission was so secret, no distress signal was sent.

[RPM 26215]

 

[El Diablo 4232]

July 31st, 1972, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton withdrew from the ticket with George McGovern following disclosures that Eagleton had once undergone psychiatric treatment.

That was awkward iirc.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

15 hours ago, El Diablo said:

July 31st, 1972, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton withdrew from the ticket with George McGovern following disclosures that Eagleton had once undergone psychiatric treatment.

That was awkward iirc.

Isn't it about time we institute a rule that anyone going into politics ought to be required to undergo psychiatric treatment? Just a thought, no CR.

[HouTex 1850]

1966 Charles Whitman wounds 31 and kills 16 at the University of Texas at Austin
 

 

[El Diablo 4232]

 August 2, 1876—143 years ago today--James Butler Hickok, better known as “Wild Bill” Hickok, was gunned down by Texas desperado Jack McCall in a Dakota Territory saloon. Hickok, who was playing poker at the time of the shooting, had his back to the door. Hickok usually sat with his back to the wall, but the only seat available when he joined the game that night put his back to the door. McCall, a former Buffalo hunter, walked in unnoticed and shot Wild Bill in the back of the head, shouting, “Take that!” before he fired. McCall was hanged for the shooting, never revealing his motive. The poker hand Hickok was holding when he died consisted of a pair of black aces and a pair of black eights. This combination later became known as the dead man's hand

[BabaYaga 15209]

On 8/1/2019 at 7:37 AM, HouTex said:

1966 Charles Whitman wounds 31 and kills 16 at the University of Texas at Austin
 

 

Dad was studying in the library as a wet-behind-the-ears scared shitless freshman from the ass of nowhere west Texas and his graduating class of 13.  Welcome to the big city, kid.  He still gets a little emotional talking about it.

[HouTex 1850]

1492 Christopher Columbus sets sail on his first voyage with three ships, Santa María, Pinta and Niña from Palos de la Frontera, Spain for the "Indies"

1852 America's first intercollegiate sporting event takes place as the Harvard heavyweight rowing crew beats Yale by 2 lengths over 2 miles on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire

1861 Federal fleet bombards Galveston, Texas

1914 Germany invades Belgium and declares war on France, beginning World War I

1936 American sprinter Jesse Owens wins the 100m (10.3 seconds) in front of Adolf Hitler in a famous race at the Berlin Olympics, first of 4 gold medals at the Games

1943 General Patton slaps a US GI in hospital, accusing him of cowardice

 

[Armybrat 40730]

On 8/2/2019 at 9:01 AM, BabaYaga said:

Dad was studying in the library as a wet-behind-the-ears scared shitless freshman from the ass of nowhere west Texas and his graduating class of 13.  Welcome to the big city, kid.  He still gets a little emotional talking about it.

I was having a #5 Flameburger at the Holiday House on the Drag with my roomie, then we walked to a parking lot on 21st where the Dobie tower now stands to watch it while crouched behind my car. Had a clear view of him doing his evil work.

Roomie & I had been apartment hunting that morning because we were being evicted from our West Campus digs for “excessive rowdiness”. 

Edited August 3, 2019 by Armybrat

[retread 2951]

Quote

On August 3, 1958, the U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus accomplishes the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole. The world’s first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus dived at Point Barrow, Alaska, and traveled nearly 1,000 miles under the Arctic ice cap to reach the top of the world. It then steamed on to Iceland, pioneering a new and shorter route from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Europe.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nautilus-travels-under-north-pole

[El Diablo 4232]

August 4th, 1972, Arthur Bremer was convicted and sentenced in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, to 63 years in prison for his attempt on the life of Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace (the sentence was later reduced to 53 years; Bremer was released from prison in 2007).

[HouTex 1850]

1305 William Wallace, who led Scottish resistance to England, is captured by the English near Glasgow and transported to London for trial and execution.

1583 Humphrey Gilbert claims Newfoundland for the British crown - first English colony in North America and the beginning of the British Empire

1864 Battle of Mobile Bay, won by the Union Army led by Rear Admiral Farragut with the cry "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" (US Civil War)

1932 Clyde Barrow and two associates kill Sheriff C.G. Maxwell and his deputy, Eugene C. Moore, the first time the Barrow gang kills a lawman

1969 Pirates outfielder Willie Stargell smashes first and longest home run ever hit out of Dodger Stadium; the incomparable shot off Alan Foster, measures 506 feet

1981 President Reagan fires 11,500 striking air traffic controllers

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

On August 5, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert established the first English colony in North America, at what is now St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

There were actually Englishmen already present (at "fishing stations") when he arrived -- he made no real attempt to settle there, instead merely levying a few ill-conceived and uncollectable taxes before turning for home after a couple of short weeks.

Owing to numerous obvious examples of maritime stupidity, his flagship "Squirrel" went down with all hands. Probably explains why nobody learns about him in high school history books, one would imagine. His colony died with him, and nobody moved there permanently for a good long while.

[HouTex 1850]

1945 Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima by the US B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay"
 

[HenryJames 65887]

 

[El Diablo 4232]

August 7th, 1989, a plane carrying U.S. Rep. Mickey Leland, D-Texas, and 14 others disappeared over Ethiopia. (The wreckage of the plane was found six days later; there were no survivors.)

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

August 7th is Premta d’Simele (Assyrian Martyr’s Day), a day of remembrance marking the first of many massacres committed by the Iraqi government against Assyrian people in Northern Iraq in August of 1933.  Roughly 3,000 Assyrians died in villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts. 

 In 2004, the Syrian government banned Assyrian political organizations and the Assyrian community of Syria from commemorating the event, and threatened arrests if any were to break the ban.

[HouTex 1850]

1882 Hatfields of south West Virginia and McCoys of east Kentucky feud, 100 wounded or die

1961 Soviet premier Khrushchev predicts USSR economy will surpass US

1990 US deploys troops to Saudi Arabia beginning Operation Desert Shield

[El Diablo 4232]

August 8, 1935—84 years ago today—Joseph Arrington, Jr. was born in Rogers. His family moved to Baytown when he was 5 and there he started performing song-and-dance routines. When he was a junior in high school, he competed in a talent contest in Houston and won $300 and a one-week stay in a hotel in Harlem. During a four-week period he won the amateur night competition at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater four times. After he graduated from high school in 1955, he headed back to New York City, landed a contract with King Records and under the name “Joe Tex” recorded a series of hits including "Hold On To What You Got," "Papa Was Too," "Skinny Legs and All," and his biggest seller, "I Gotcha," which went platinum in 1971. The next year, he gave up performing and started a three-year speaking ministry for the Nation of Islam, returning to performing in 1975 and recording the 1977 hit “I Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman).” He died of heart failure in 1982 at his home in Navasota.

 

[HouTex 1850]

1844 Brigham Young chosen as head of Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) following the death of Joseph Smith

1854 Smith & Wesson patents metal bullet cartridges

1898 Will Kellogg invents Corn Flakes

1918 World War I: The Allies launch the Hundred Days Offensive, beginning with the Battle of Amiens where 500 tanks and 10 Allied divisions attacked German lines

1940 31 German aircraft shot down over England

1942 6 convicted Nazi saboteurs who landed in US executed in Washington, D.C.

1945 President Harry Truman signs the United Nations Charter

1945 US, USSR, Britain and France sign Treaty of London which sets down procedures for the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war leaders

1945 USSR declares war against Japan in WW II

1945 USSR establishes a communist government in North Korea

1963 Great Train Robbery in England, £2.6 million ($7.3 million)

1974 US President Richard Nixon announces he will resign at 12pm the next day

1976 Chicago White Sox suit up in shorts

1988 Russian troops begin pull out of Afghanistan after 9 year war

1992 The original US 'Dream Team' wins the basketball gold at the Barcelona Olympics 117-85 over Croatia; features superstars Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Scotty Pippen, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing

 

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

August 9, 1854, Henry David Thoreau published "Walden, or A Life in the Woods" -- this seminal Transcendentalist collection of essays is essentially a memoir of Thoreau's two year experiment in self-sufficiency living in a small one-room cabin near the shores of Walden Pond in Connecticut. 

While there is something in Walden for everyone, bringing as we do to texts all our presuppositions and philosophical prejudices, the essence of Thoreau's argument against the industry and economy of his fellow humans comes down to two premises which led to his conclusion that a life without the "necessaries" of modern life was a better life.

First, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." 

And second, "Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind."

The toolkit of escape from the tyrrany of economy is fairly straightforward, according to Thoreau: "Simplify, simplify."

[HouTex 1850]

1483 Opening of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican

1757 English Fort William Henry, NY, surrenders to French & Indians troops

1898 Rudolf Diesel of Germany obtains patent #608,845 for his internal combustion engine, later known as the diesel engine

1945 US drops 2nd atomic bomb "Fat Man" on Japan destroys part of Nagasaki

1969 Manson family commits Tate-LaBianca murders

1974 Richard Nixon resigns as President of the United States and Vice President Gerald Ford swears the oath of office to take his place as the 38th US President

[Message Board User 12389]

 

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

August 10, 1628, the Swedish warship Vasa took her maiden voyage. King Gustavus Adolphus had been one of the most successful Kings in Swedish history (at least, in terms of spreading Swedish military might), and was anxious to extend that power to maritime success.

Armed with an impressive array of specially cast bronze cannons, Vasa was one of the most powerful warships ever seen.

She was also an object lesson to leaders everywhere not to surround themselves with yes-men. See, everyone was so afraid of the king, who was impatient to see his new ship set up shop in the Baltic in support of his troop movements in Poland, that they didn't dare bring up the fact that Vasa was ridiculously top-heavy, and was, in addition to being the most powerful ship in the world, also one of the poorest examples of engineering in all of history.

20 minutes into her maiden -- and only -- voyage, Vasa encountered a slight breeze... which was all she wrote. After sailing a mere 1300 meters (a couple of football fields shy of a mile), she sank.

She was recovered in the 1960s, and the museum where the wreck is now on display is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions.

[Armybrat 40730]

My MIL visited that Vasa museum 40 years ago, and all I got was a leather bookmark from the gift shop.

[HouTex 1850]

610 In Islam, the traditional date of the Laylat al-Qadr, when Muhammad began to receive the Qur'an

1776 American Revolutionary War: word of the United States Declaration of Independence reaches London.

1897 German chemist Felix Hoffman first synthesizes acetylsalicylic acid, which would later be patened by his company Bayer under the name "aspirin"

1921 FDR stricken with polio at summer home on Canadian island of Campobello

1945 Japan announces willingness to surrender to Allies, provided Emperor Hirohito's status remains unchanged

1960 Los Angeles premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh

1977 Postal employee David Berkowitz arrested in Yonkers NY, accused of being "Son of Sam" 44 caliber killer

[MirrOlure 14620]

1776 American Revolutionary War: word of the United States Declaration of Independence reaches London.

What the? I guess they established the USPS shortly before and mailed it?

[NeverMarryAStripper 21781]

Why didn’t they just post it on instabook or facetwit?

 

[HouTex 1850]

3 Venus-Jupiter in conjunction-Star of Bethlehem

1851 1st America's Cup - US schooner America beats British yacht Aurora after race around the Isle of Wight

1869 Self-proclaimed Emperor Joshua Abraham Norton of the USA issues edict abolishing the Democratic and Republican parties

1898 Hawaii is formally annexed to US

1908 Henry Ford's company builds the first Model T car

1918 WWI: Allies defeat Germans at the Battle of Amiens - the last great battle on the Western Front

1930 Clarence Birdseye is granted a patent for method for quick freezing food (patent US 1773079 A)

1936 120°F (49°C), Seymour, Texas (state record)

1945 Emperor Hirohito of Japan informs the imperial family that he has decided to surrender

1972 Last American combat ground troops leave Vietnam

1981 IBM introduces its first Personal Computer (PC & PC-DOS version 1.0)

1985 520 people die when Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes in Ueno, Japan, the second-deadliest aviation disaster of all time

 

[Trey3216 15325]

1 hour ago, HouTex said:

 

1985 520 people die when Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes in Ueno, Japan, the second-deadliest aviation disaster of all time

 

no b-Ueno

[HouTex 1850]

1521 Spanish conquistadors under Hernán Cortés capture Aztec Emperor Cuauhtémoc in Tenochtitlan marking the end of the Aztec Empire

1784 British parliament accepts East India Company Act 1784, bringing the East India Company's rule in India under the control of the British Government.

1919 Man o'War's only defeat (Upset wins at Saratoga)

1940 Hermann Goering's "Adler Tag" (Eagle day); 45-48 German aircraft shot down over Southern England (Battle of Britain)

1942 The 'Manhattan Project' commences, under the direction of US General Leslie Groves: its aim - to deliver an atomic bomb

1961 Construction of the Berlin Wall begins in East Germany

1977 1st test glide of space shuttle

1981 Last broadcast of "The Waltons" on CBS-TV ("Goodnight John-Boy")
 

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

On 8/9/2019 at 7:46 AM, Message Board User said:

 

"Hey boss.  I got an idea for our next project.  Let's build a huge tower with a ton of arches and columns.  Going to be beautiful.  Can see for miles in any direction from the top.  Make us rich.  We'll call it the Leaning Tower of Pisa."

"Sounds great.  I can't wait to . . . wait, the what Tower?    

[HouTex 1850]

1846 Henry David Thoreau jailed for refusing to pay taxes

1941 US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issue the joint declaration that later becomes known as the Atlantic Charter

1945 V-J Day, Japan surrenders unconditionally to end WW II (also August 15 depending on time zone)

1965 Beatles tape an appearance for Ed Sullivan Show

1980 17,000 workers go on strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland, marking the beginning of the Solidarity movement

[Wally Fairway 5521]

2003 Electrical system failure leads to multi start blackout in New England and the upper Midwest

[HouTex 1850]

1620 Mayflower sets sail from Southampton, England, with 102 Pilgrims

1635 1st recorded north American hurricane hits the Plymouth Colony

1870 Transcontinental Railway actually completed in Colorado

1939 "The Wizard of Oz", American musical fantasy film directed by Victor Fleming and King Vidor, premieres at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood

1944 Operation Anvil: Allies land on French Mediterranean sea coast

1947 India gains independence from Great Britain, remains a dominion until 1950

1950 8.6 earthquake in India kills 20,000 to 30,000

1965 Beatles play to 55,000 at Shea Stadium

1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in New York State on Max Yasgur's Dairy Farm

1979 "Apocalypse Now", directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, and Martin Sheen, is released

1994 Terrorist Carlos the Jackal, captured in Khartoum Sudan
 

[HouTex 1850]

1920 Ray Chapman, of Indians is hit in head by Yankees pitcher Carl Mays; he dies the next day in only major league fatality

1954 "Sports Illustrated" magazine begins publishing

1962 Ringo Starr replaces Pete Best as Beatles' drummer, first official concert two days later

1984 LA federal jury acquits auto maker John Z DeLorean on cocaine charges