I never heard of that summer jam at Watkins Glen. It must have been a good time. Except I hate big crowds and 600,000 is a lot of people. So maybe I would have had a bad time. How have I never heard about this concert before?

According to some web site:

(day old news) Yahoo Serious is 63 years old?

Wow. I guess that made him about 34 when he filmed Young Einstein

Speaking of old...Bob (from Sesame Street, who was just let go) IS 84?!

84?!

And he had been with the show since the beginning (1969).

All I can recall of Young Einstein is when he went out to the shed to split the beer atom...

Ka-tink, tink, tink, KA-BOOM!!

July 29

904 – Sack of Thessalonica: Saracen raiders under Leo of Tripoli sack Thessaloniki, the Byzantine Empire's second-largest city, after a short siege, and plunder it for a week.

1148 – The Siege of Damascus ends in a decisive crusader defeat and leads to the disintegration of the Second Crusade.

1836 – Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France.

1907 – Sir Robert Baden-Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The camp runs from August 1 to August 9, 1907, and is regarded as the foundation of the Scouting movement.

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

1945 – The BBC Light Programme radio station is launched for mainstream light entertainment and music.

1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

1965 – Vietnam War: The first 4,000 101st Airborne Division paratroopers arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay.

1966 - Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker made their live debut as Cream at The Twisted Wheel, Manchester, England. The group's third album, Wheels of Fire, was the world's first platinum-selling double album.

Bob Dylan was riding his Triumph 55 motorcycle to a garage near his home in Woodstock, New York for repairs when the rear wheel locked. Dylan lost control and was thrown over the handlebars, suffering a broken neck vertebra. His recuperation led to a period of reclusive inactivity.

1967 – Vietnam War: Off the coast of North Vietnam the USS Forrestal catches on fire in the worst U.S. naval disaster since World War II, killing 134 people.

1968 - The first recording session of The Beatles seven-minute epic 'Hey Jude' took place at Abbey Road studios London. The Paul McCartney song was written about John Lennon's son Julian.

1972, Screaming Lord Sutch was arrested in London after jumping from a bus in Downing Street with four nude women. Sutch was publicising his forthcoming London gigs.

1974 - Mamas And The Papas singer Cass Elliot died in her sleep from a heart attack after playing a sold out show in London, England.

1976 – In New York City, David Berkowitz (a.k.a. the "Son of Sam") kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks.

1981 – A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watch the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral in London.

1987 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand sign the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel, the Eurotunnel.

1993 – The Supreme Court of Israel acquits alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges and he is set free.

2007 - Heart problems forced KISS singer and guitarist Paul Stanley to abandon a show in California. Paramedics stopped and restarted his heart to give it a regular rhythm after his heart spontaneously jumped to 190 plus beats per minute.

Births

1869 – Booth Tarkington; 1883 – Benito Mussolini; 1885 – Theda Bara; 1892 – William Powell; 1905 – Clara Bow; 1907 – Melvin Belli; 1914 – Irwin Corey; 1916 – Budd Boetticher; 1921 – Richard Egan; 1923 – Jim Marshall (Marshall Amplifiers); 1924 – Elizabeth Short (the Black Dahlia); 1933 – Capt. Lou Albano; 1936 – Elizabeth Dole; 1938 – Peter Jennings; 1946 – Neal Doughty(:keys:REO Speedwagon); 1950 – Mike Starr; 1953 – Ken Burns; 1953 – Tim Gunn, Geddy Lee(:bass:Rush); Patti Scialfa♪ ♫; 1956 – Teddy Atlas:boxers:; 1959 – John Sykes♪ ♫(:shred:Whitesnake, Thin Lizzie); 1966 – Martina McBride♪ ♫; 1972 – Wil Wheaton; 1973 – Stephen Dorff; 1974 – Josh Radnor (HIMYM); 1977 – Danger Mouse♪ ♫:keys:

Deaths

1856 – Robert Schumann♪ ♫; 1890 – Vincent van Gogh:artist:; 1974 – Cass Elliot♪ ♫; 1976 – Mickey Cohen; 1979 – Bill Todman ("This has been a Mark Goodson/Bill Todman production."); 1983 – Raymond Massey, David Niven; 2007 – Tom Snyder

July 30

762 – Baghdad is founded by caliph Al-Mansur.

1608 – At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs. This was to set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next one hundred years.

1626 – An earthquake in Naples, Italy kills about 10,000 people.

1729 – Founding of Baltimore, Maryland.

1733 – The first Masonic Grand Lodge in the future United States is constituted in Massachusetts.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of the Crater (<--interesting read): Union forces attempt to break Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.

1916 – Black Tom Island explosion in Jersey City, New Jersey.

1945 – World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis, killing 883 seamen.

1962 – The Trans-Canada Highway, the longest national highway in the world, is officially opened.

1965 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.

1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again.

1990 – George Steinbrenner is forced by Commissioner Fay Vincent to resign as principal partner of New York Yankees for hiring Howie Spira to "get dirt" on Dave Winfield.

2003 – In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.

2005 - A new book published to mark the 35th anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix claimed the guitarist pretended to be gay so he would be discharged from the army. 'Room Full of Mirrors' by Charles Cross said army records showed Hendrix was discharged from the 101st Airborne Division aged 19 in 1962 for "homosexual tendencies."

2012 – A power grid failure in Delhi leaves more than 300 million people without power in northern India.

Births

1818 – Emily Brontë; 1855 – Georg Wilhelm von Siemens (Siemens AG); 1863 – Henry Ford; 1881 – Smedley Butler (at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history); 1890 – Casey Stengel; 1922 – Henry W. Bloch (co-founded H&R Block); 1927 – Richard Johnson; 1929 – Sid Krofft; 1933 – Edd Byrnes; 1934 – Bud Selig; 1936 – Buddy Guy:shred:; 1938 – Terry O'Neill; 1939 – Peter Bogdanovich; 1941 – Paul Anka♪ ♫; 1945 – David Sanborn♪ ♫; 1946 – Neil Bonnett:driving:; 1947 – William Atherton, Arnold Schwarzenegger; 1948 – Jean Reno; 1949 – Duck Baker:shred:; 1954 – Ken Olin; 1956 – Delta Burke, Anita Hill; 1958 – Kate Bush♪ ♫; 1960 – Richard Linklater; 1961 – Laurence Fishburne; 1963 – Lisa Kudrow; 1964 – Vivica A. Fox; 1968 – Terry Crews; 1969 – Simon Baker (The Mentalist); 1970 – Christopher Nolan; 1971 – Elvis Crespo♪ ♫, Tom Green, Christine Taylor ('Marcia Brady' in The Brady Bunch Movie); 1974 – Hilary Swank; 1977 – Misty May-Treanor, Jaime Pressly; 1980 - Seth Avett (The Avett Bros)

Deaths

1718 – William Penn; 1875 – George Pickett; 1898 – Otto von Bismarck; 1918 – Joyce Kilmer; 1992 – Joe Shuster (created Superman); 1996 – Claudette Colbert; 1998 – Buffalo Bob Smith (host Howdy Doody Show); 2003 – Sam Phillips; 2007 – Ingmar Bergman, Bill Walsh; 2015 – Lynn Anderson♪ ♫

I remember when Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. His unusual surname caught my attention at the time and is why it sticks in my mind.
I just had a quick look at Wiki to fill in the gaps. I knew that he was a somewhat 'controversial' character, but talk about a chequered past!
No doubt he had acquired more than the usual quota of enemies over the years.
Probably entombed in the concrete column of a bridge somewhere.

July 31

Today is Ka Hae Hawai'i Day (Flag Day) in the U.S. state of Hawaii.

30 BC – Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide.

781 – The earliest recorded eruption of Mount Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: July 6, 781).

1498 – On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.

1588 – The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.

1703 – Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.

1790 – The first U.S. patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.

1930 – The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first time.

1970 – Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.

1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts on the moon become the first to ride in a lunar rover.

2006 – Fidel Castro hands over power to brother Raúl Castro.

2007 – Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end.

2012 – Michael Phelps breaks the record set in 1964 by Larisa Latynina for the most medals won at the Olympics.

Births

1837 – William Quantrill (Quantrill's Raiders); 1847 – Ignacio Cervantes; 1867 – S. S. Kresge (Kresge's, K-Mart); 1886 – Fred Quimby; 1916 – Bill Todman; 1919 – Curt Gowdy; 1929 – Don Murray; 1931 – Kenny Burrell; 1932 – Ted Cassidy ('Lurch'); 1935 – Geoffrey Lewis; 1944 – Geraldine Chaplin; 1946 – Gary Lewis; 1952 – Alan Autry; 1956 – Michael Biehn; 1958 – Bill Berry; 1958 – Mark Cuban; 1962 – Wesley Snipes; 1965 – J. K. Rowling; 1970 – Ben Chaplin; 1977 – Tim Couch

Deaths

1886 – Franz Liszt; 1964 – Jim Reeves; 2012 – Gore Vidal; 2013 – Michael Ansara; 2015 – Roddy Piper

August 1

Today is Lammas Day in England and Scotland, celebrating the wheat harvest.

In the Northern Hemisphere, today is Lughnasadh, marking the beginning of the harvest season.

30 BC – Octavian (later known as Augustus) enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman Republic.

1620 – The Speedwell leaves Delfshaven to bring pilgrims to America by way of England.

1715 – The Riot Act comes into force in England.

1800 – The Acts of Union 1800 are passed which merge the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1831 – A new London Bridge opens.

1911 – Harriet Quimby takes her pilot's test and becomes the first U.S. woman to earn an Aero Club of America aviator's certificate.

1964, Billboard Magazine reported that the harmonica was making a comeback in a big way thanks to its use by Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Bob Dylan.

1966 – Charles Whitman kills 16 people at the University of Texas at Austin before being killed by the police.

1971, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour started on prime time American TV. By this time, Sonny and Cher had stopped producing hit singles so the duo decided to sing and tell jokes in nightclubs across the country. CBS head of programming Fred Silverman saw them one evening and offered them their own show.

1981 – MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles.

1993 – The Great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers Flood of 1993 comes to a peak.

2004 – A supermarket fire kills 396 people and injures 500 others in Asunción, Paraguay.

2007 – The I-35W Mississippi River bridge, spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapses during the evening rush hour.

Births

10 BC – Claudius; 1659 – Sebastiano Ricci:artist:; 1770 – William Clark (Lewis & Clark); 1779 – Francis Scott Key:f207:; 1809 – William B. Travis (Remember the Alamo?); 1819 – Herman Melville; 1843 – Robert Todd Lincoln; 1912 – Henry Jones; 1930 – Lawrence Eagleburger; 1931 – Ramblin' Jack Elliott♪ ♫; 1933 – Dom DeLuise; 1936 – Yves Saint Laurent; 1942 – Jerry Garcia♪ ♫; 1944 – Andrew G. Vajna; 1946 – Boz Burrell♪ ♫; 1951 – Tim Bachman♪ ♫(BTO); 1951 – Tommy Bolin♪ ♫(Deep Purple, James Gang); 1953 – Robert Cray♪ ♫:shred:; 1957 – Taylor Negron; 1959 – Joe Elliott♪ ♫(Def Leppard); 1960 – Chuck D♪ ♫(Public Enemy), Professor Griff♪ ♫(Public Enemy); 1961 – Brad Faxon; 1963 – Coolio♪ ♫; 1964 – Adam Duritz♪ ♫(Counting Crows); 1978 – Dhani Harrison♪ ♫(George Harrison's son); 1979 – Jason Momoa (GoT)

Deaths

30 BC – Mark Antony; 1903 – Calamity Jane; 1966 – Charles Whitman; 1970 – Frances Farmer; 1977 – Francis Gary Powers; 1980 – Strother Martin; 1981 – Paddy Chayefsky; 2006 – Bob Thaves (creator Frank & Ernest); 2009 – Corazon Aquino; 2015 – Cilla Black♪ ♫

VH1 Classic was rebranded as MTV Classic today...and started off by showing the 1st hour of MTV.

August 2

216 BC – The Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army at the Battle of Cannae. Hannibal loved it when a plan came together.

1274 – Edward I of England returns from the Ninth Crusade and is crowned King seventeen days later.

1343 – After the execution of her husband, Jeanne de Clisson sells her estates and raises a force of men with which to attack French shipping and ports.

1610 – During Henry Hudson's search for the Northwest Passage, he sails into what is now known as Hudson Bay.

1869 – Japan's samurai class system is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.

1873 – The Clay Street Hill Railroad begins operating the first cable car in San Francisco's famous cable car system.

1923 – Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes U.S. President upon the death of President Warren G. Harding.

1937 – The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal.

1939 – Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon.

1943 – World War II: The Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and sinks. Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. President, saves all but two of his crew.

1947 – A British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian airliner crashes into a mountain during a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. The wreckage would not be found until 1998.

1962 - Robert Allen Zimmerman legally became Bob Dylan having signed a music publishing deal with Witmark Music on 12th July of this year.

1964 - The Beatles appeared at the Gaumont Cinema in Bournemouth. One of the supporting acts, billed as a 'new and unknown London group', was The Kinks.

After an intense search the bodies of Jim Reeves and Dean Manuel were found in the wreckage of an aircraft and, at 1:00 p.m. local time, radio stations across the United States announced Reeves' death formally. The single-engine Beechcraft Debonair aircraft, with Reeves at the controls had crashed 42 hours earlier during a thunderstorm. Thousands of people traveled to pay their last respects at his funeral two days later. The coffin, draped in flowers from fans, was driven through the streets of Nashville and then to Reeves' final resting place near Carthage, Texas.

1973 - The Mamas and the Papas filed a lawsuit against their record label, Dunhill, for over a million dollars in unpaid royalties.

1976 - Peter "Puddy" Watts, road manager with Pink Floyd, and father to Naomi Watts, died of a heroin overdose. Watts supplied the crazed laughter on the groups The Dark Side of The Moon album.

1983 - James Jamerson died of complications stemming from cirrhosis of the liver, heart failure and pneumonia in Los Angeles, he was 47 years old. As one of The Funk Brothers he was the uncredited bassist on most of Motown Records' hits in the 1960s and early 1970s. He eventually performed on nearly 30 No.1 pop hits.

1991 - Rick James and his girlfriend Tanya Hijazi were arrested in Hollywood charged with assault with a deadly weapon aggravated mayhem torture, false imprisonment and forcible oral copulation. James was released on $1 million bail.

2000 - Jerome Smith from KC and the Sunshine Band died after being crushed by a bulldozer he was operating.

Births

1754 – Pierre Charles L'Enfant (designed Washington, D.C.); 1834 – Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi:artist: (designed the Statue of Liberty); 1835 – Elisha Gray (co-founded Western Electric); 1892 – Jack L. Warner (co-founded Warner Bros.); 1900 – Holling C. Holling; 1905 – Myrna Loy; 1911 – Ann Dvorak; 1919 – Nehemiah Persoff; 1923 – Shimon Peres; 1924 – Carroll O'Connor; 1932 – Lamar Hunt (co-founded the American Football League), Peter O'Toole; 1935 – Hank Cochran♪ ♫; 1937 – Garth Hudson:keys: (The Band); 1939 – Wes Craven:speechls:; 1944 – Jim Capaldi:drummer:; 1945 – Joanna Cassidy; 1948 – Andy Fairweather Low♪ ♫; 1950 – Lance Ito; 1951 – Joe Lynn Turner♪ ♫(Rainbow), Andrew Gold; 1957 – Mojo Nixon♪ ♫; 1959 – Victoria Jackson (SNL); 1959 – Apollonia Kotero♪ ♫; 1964 – Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds); 1970 – Kevin Smith; 1976 – Sam Worthington; 1992 – Hallie Eisenberg

Deaths

1788 – Thomas Gainsborough:artist:; 1859 – Horace Mann; 1876 – "Wild Bill" Hickok; 1921 – Enrico Caruso♪ ♫; 1922 – Alexander Graham Bell; 1923 – Warren G. Harding (29th POTUS); 1934 – Paul von Hindenburg; 1976 – Fritz Lang; 1979 – Thurman Munson; 1983 – James Jamerson:bass:; 1986 – Roy Cohn; 1997 – William S. Burroughs; 1998 – Shari Lewis

August 3

There are 150 days remaining in 2016.

1527 – The first known letter from North America is sent by John Rut while at St. John's, Newfoundland.

1678 – Robert LaSalle builds the Le Griffon, the first known ship built on the Great Lakes.

1778 – The theatre La Scala is inaugurated.

1852 – Harvard University wins the first Boat Race between Yale University and Harvard. The race is also the first American intercollegiate athletic event.

1900 – The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is founded.

1907 – Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis fines Standard Oil of Indiana a record $29.4 million for illegal rebating to freight carriers; the conviction and fine are later reversed on appeal.

1921 – Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis confirms the ban of the eight Chicago Black Sox, the day after they were acquitted by a Chicago court.

1936 – Jesse Owens wins the 100 metre dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, at the Berlin Olympics.

1936 – A fire wipes out Kursha-2 in the Meshchera Lowlands, Ryazan Oblast, Russia, killing 1,200 and leaving only 20 survivors.

1949 – The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League finalize a merger, that creates the National Basketball Association (NBA).

1977 – Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world's first mass-produced personal computers.

2004 – The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty reopens after being closed since the September 11 attacks.

2014 – A 6.1 magnitude earthquake kills at least 617 people and injures more than 2,400 in Yunnan, China.

Births

1808 – Hamilton Fish; 1811 – Elisha Otis (Otis Elevator Company); 1900 – Ernie Pyle, John T. Scopes; 1901 – John C. Stennis; 1905 – Dolores del Río; 1924 – Leon Uris; 1926 – Tony Bennett♪ ♫; 1934 – Haystacks Calhoun; 1938 – Terry Wogan; 1940 – Martin Sheen; 1941 – Martha Stewart; 1946 – Jack Straw, John York:bass:(The Byrds); 1950 – John Landis; 1959 – John C. McGinley; 1961 – Lee Rocker:bass:(Stray Cats); 1963 – James Hetfield:devil:(Metallica); 1963 – Lisa Ann Walter, Isaiah Washington; 1977 – Tom Brady; 1984 – Ryan Lochte; 1992 – Karlie Kloss

Deaths

1966 – Lenny Bruce; 1983 – Carolyn Jones ('Morticia Addams'); 1995 – Ida Lupino; 2001 – Christopher Hewett ('Mr. Belvedere'); 2011 – Bubba Smith

August 4

367 – Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus by his father and associated to the throne aged eight.

1693 – Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon's invention of champagne; it is not clear whether he actually invented champagne, however he has been credited as an innovator who developed the techniques used to perfect sparkling wine.

1783 – Mount Asama erupts in Japan, killing about 1,400 people. The eruption causes a famine, which results in an additional 20,000 deaths.

1790 – A newly passed tariff act creates the Revenue Cutter Service (the forerunner of the United States Coast Guard).

1821 – The Saturday Evening Post is published for the first time as a weekly newspaper.

1873 – American Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the United States 7th Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer clashes for the first time with the Cheyenne and Lakota people near the Tongue River; only one man on each side is killed.

1889 – The Great Fire of Spokane, Washington destroys some 32 blocks of the city, prompting a mass rebuilding project.

1892 – The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home.

1944 – The Holocaust: A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse, where they find and arrest Jewish diarist Anne Frank, her family, and four others.

1958 – The Billboard Hot 100 is published for the first time.

1964 – American civil rights movement: Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.

1967 - Pink Floyd released their debut album The Piper At the Gates of Dawn on which most songs were penned by Syd Barrett. In subsequent years, the record has been recognized as one of the seminal psychedelic rock albums of the 1960s.

1969 – Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, American representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuân Thuỷ begin secret peace negotiations. The negotiations will eventually fail.

1975 - Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and his wife were both badly injured when the hire car he was driving spun off the road and crashed on the Greek island of Rhodes. Plant smashed both his ankle and his elbow, and was not fully fit for the best part of two years.

1987 – The Federal Communications Commission rescinds the Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to present controversial issues "fairly".

1993 – A federal judge sentences Los Angeles Police Department officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King's civil rights.

2005 - American blues singer and guitarist Little Milton died. Milton had suffered a brain aneurysm on 25th July 2005 and had lapsed into a coma.

Births

1792 – Percy Bysshe Shelley; 1821 – Louis Vuitton; 1834 – John Venn (Venn Diagram); 1898 – Ernesto Maserati:driving:; 1900 – Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother; 1901 – Louis Armstrong♪ ♫; 1918 – :apimp:; 1920 – Helen Thomas (loooong time White House reporter); 1923 – Reg Grundy; 1928 – Gerard Damiano:doit:(porn writer/director); 1939 – Frank Vincent ('Phil Leotardo' on The Sopranos); 1942 – Don S. Davis (Stargate SG-1); 1944 – Richard Belzer; 1949 – John Riggins:devil:; 1955 – Billy Bob Thornton; 1956 – Gerry Cooney:boxers:; 1959 – Robbin Crosby:shred:(Ratt); 1961 – Barack Hussein Obama (44th POTUS); 1962 – Roger Clemens; 1969 – Max Cavalera♪ ♫(Sepultura); 1969 – Michael DeLuise; 1971 – Jeff Gordon:driving:; 1978 – Kurt Busch:driving:; 1985 – Crystal Bowersox♪ ♫

Deaths

1265 - Peter de Montfort, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, Hugh le Despencer, 1st Baron le Despencer; 1981 – Melvyn Douglas; 1990 – Ettore Maserati; 1999 – Victor Mature:behead:; 2001 – Lorenzo Music; 2005 - Little Milton♪ ♫; 2007 – Lee Hazlewood♪ ♫; 2014 – James Brady

August 5

1100 – Henry I is crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.

1305 – William Wallace, who led the Scottish resistance against England, is captured by the English near Glasgow and transported to London where he is put on trial and executed.

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

1620 – The Mayflower departs from Southampton, England on its first attempt to reach North America.

1689 – One thousand five hundred Iroquois attack the village of Lachine in New France.

1763 – Pontiac's War: Battle of Bushy Run: British forces led by Henry Bouquet defeat Chief Pontiac's Indians at Bushy Run.

1816 – The British Admiralty dismisses Francis Ronalds's new invention of the first working electric telegraph as "wholly unnecessary", preferring to continue using the semaphore.

1861 – American Civil War: In order to help pay for the war effort, the United States government levies the first income tax as part of the Revenue Act of 1861 (3% of all incomes over US $800; rescinded in 1872).

1861 – The United States Army abolishes flogging.

1874 – Japan launches its postal savings system, modeled after a similar system in the United Kingdom.

1888 – Bertha Benz (wife of Karl Benz) drives from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back in the first long distance automobile trip, commemorated as the Bertha Benz Memorial Route since 2008.

1914 – In Cleveland, Ohio, the first electric traffic light is installed.

1926 – Harry Houdini performs his greatest feat, spending 91 minutes underwater in a sealed tank before escaping.

1941 – World War II: The Battle of Smolensk concludes with Germany capturing about 300,000 Soviet Red Army prisoners.

1944 – World War II: Possibly the biggest prison breakout in history occurs as 545 Japanese POWs attempt to escape outside the town of Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.

1949 – The Mann Gulch fire kills 13 firefighters in Montana.

1957 – American Bandstand, a show dedicated to the teenage "baby-boomers" by playing the songs and showing popular dances of the time, debuts on the ABC television network.

1958 – Herbert Hoover eclipses John Adams as having the longest retirement of any former U.S President until that time. Hoover would live another six years. His record 31 years 7 months 16 days retirement has since been eclipsed by Jimmy Carter.

1965 - Jan Berry of Jan and Dean was accidentally knocked off a camera car and broke his leg on the first day of filming a new film Easy Come, Easy Go. Several other people were also hurt, causing Paramount to cancel the movie entirely.

1968 - American country guitarist Luther Perkins died at the age of 40 as a result of severe burns and smoke inhalation. Perkins fell asleep at home in his den with a cigarette in his hand. He was dragged from the fire unconscious with severe second and third degree burns. Perkins never regained consciousness.

1975 - Drummer Sandy West and guitarist Joan Jett formed the first ever all female heavy rock band after being introduced by producer Kim Fowley. The Runaways released four studio albums.

1981 – President Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.

1983 - Crosby Stills Nash & Young member David Crosby was sentenced to five years in jail in Texas for cocaine and firearms offences. Crosby had slept through most of his trial.:zzz:

2009 - Steven Tyler was airlifted to hospital after falling off stage during a gig at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. The 61-year-old Aerosmith singer fell from a catwalk onto a couple of fans, he suffered neck and shoulder injuries. About 30 minutes after the accident, guitarist Joe Perry came out to tell the crowd that the remainder of the show had been cancelled.

2010 – The Copiapó mining accident occurs, trapping 33 Chilean miners approximately 2,300 ft (700 m) below the ground for 69 days.

2012 – The Oak Creek shooting took place at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six people; the perpetrator was shot dead by police.

Births

1862 – Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man); 1906 – John Huston; 1911 – Robert Taylor; 1914 – Parley Baer; 1930 – Neil Armstrong; 1934 – Wendell Berry, Vern "The Voice" Gosdin♪ ♫; 1940 – Roman Gabriel; 1943 – Sammi Smith♪ ♫; 1945 – Loni Anderson; 1946 – Erika Slezak; 1947 – Rick Derringer♪ ♫:shred:; 1951 – Samantha Sang♪ ♫; 1955 – Eddie Ojeda:shred:; 1956 – Maureen McCormick; 1960 – David Baldacci; 1961 – Mark O'Connor:violin:; 1961 – Tim Wilson♪ ♫:lol2:; 1962 – Patrick Ewing; 1964 – Adam Yauch (Beastie Boys' 'MCA'); 1968 – Terri Clark♪ ♫; 1982 – Lolo Jones; 1986 – Paula Creamer

Deaths

1881 – Spotted Tail; 1955 – Carmen Miranda; 1962 – Marilyn Monroe; 1968 – Luther Perkins♪ ♫:bass:; 1983 – Judy Canova; 1984 – Richard Burton; 1992 – Jeff Porcaro♪ ♫:drummer:(Toto); 2000 – Sir Alec Guinness; 2002 – Chick Hearn

I like these, with the links and pictures.

August 7

Today marks the approximate midpoint of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and of Winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

936 – Coronation of King Otto I of Germany.

1679 – The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the south-eastern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.

1782 – George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.

1794 – U.S. President George Washington invokes the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.

1858 – The first Australian rules football match is played between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College.

1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, taking 59 days to travel from New York, New York to San Francisco, California.

1930 – The last confirmed lynching of blacks in the Northern United States occurs in Marion, Indiana. Two men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, are killed.

1942 – World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal begins as the United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

1955 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, sells its first transistor radios in Japan.

1959 – The Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the "sheaves of wheat" design, and was minted until 2008.

1962 – Canadian-born American pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey is awarded the U.S. President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service for her refusal to authorize thalidomide.

1970 – California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during an effort to free George Jackson from police custody.

The Goose Lake International Music Festival was held in Leoni, Michigan. Over 200,000 fans attended the three day festival.

1978 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal due to toxic waste that had been disposed of negligently.

1979 – Several tornadoes strike the city of Woodstock, Ontario, Canada and the surrounding communities.

1987 – Lynne Cox becomes first person to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union, crossing from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede in the Soviet Union, a distance of ~2.5 miles.

1989 – U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.

1997 - Garth Brooks played to the largest crowd ever in New York's Central Park. An estimated 1 million people attended the live concert with an additional 14.6 million viewing live on HBO.

1998 – The United States embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya kill approximately 212 people.

2008, Elvis Presley's peacock jumpsuit, was sold at auction for $300,000, making it the most expensive piece of Elvis memorabilia ever sold at an auction. The white outfit with a plunging V-neck and high collar featured a blue-and-gold peacock design, hand-embroidered on the front and back and along the pant legs.

Births

1560 – Elizabeth Báthory; 1876 – Mata Hari; 1884 – Billie Burke; 1903 – Louis Leakey; 1926 – Stan Freberg; 1927 – Carl Switzer ('Alfalfa' in Our Gang); 1928 – James Randi (magician); 1935 – Rahsaan Roland KirkAttachment 57512; 1942 – Tobin Bell ('Jigsaw' in the Saw movies), Garrison Keillor, B. J. Thomas♪ ♫; 1944 – John Glover, Robert Mueller (former director FBI); 1950 – Rodney Crowell♪ ♫; 1954 – Jonathan Pollard (spy); Wayne Knight ('Newman' on Seinfeld); 1958 – Bruce Dickinson:devil:(Iron Maiden); 1960 – David Duchovny; 1966 – Jimmy Wales:notworthy(co-founded Wikipedia); 1975 – Charlize Theron:heartpump

Deaths

1817 – Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours; 1957 – Oliver Hardy (Laurel & Hardy); 1970 – Jonathan P. Jackson (involved in the above-noted 1970 courtroom hostage situation); 1989 – U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland; 1999 – Brion James (Bladerunner); 2004 – Red Adair; 2005 – Peter Jennings; 2013 – Margaret Pellegrini (one of the last three Munchkins)

August 8

1576 – The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg observatory is laid on the island of Hven.

1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines: The naval engagement ends, ending the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England.

1709 – Bartolomeu de Gusmão demonstrates the lifting power of hot air in an audience before the king of Portugal in Lisbon, Portugal.

1863 – American Civil War: Following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis (which is refused upon receipt).

1885 – More than 1.5 million people attend the funeral of Ulysses S. Grant in New York City.

1946 – First flight of the Convair B-36, the world's first mass-produced nuclear weapon delivery vehicle, the heaviest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft, with the longest wingspan of any military aircraft, and the first bomber with intercontinental range.

1960 - 16-year old Brian Hyland went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini', it made No.8 in the UK.

1963 – Great Train Robbery: In England, a gang of 15 train robbers steal £2.6 million in bank notes.

1969 – At a zebra crossing (crosswalk) in London, photographer Iain Macmillan takes the photo that becomes the cover of the Beatles album Abbey Road.

1974 – President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day.

1981 - MTV broadcast its first stereo concert with REO Speedwagon who performed in Denver, Colorado, having just released the album Hi Infidelity and the hit singles, ‘Keep On Loving You,’ ‘Take It On the Run’ and ‘Don’t Let Him Go.’

1989 – Space Shuttle program: STS-28 Mission: Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission.

1992 - A riot broke out during a Guns N' Roses and Metallica gig at Montreal stadium when Metallica's show was cut short after singer James Hetfield was injured by pyrotechnics. Guns N' Roses took the stage but frontman Axl Rose claimed that his throat hurt, causing the band to leave the stage early. The cancellation led to a riot by the audience who overturned cars, smashed windows, looted local stores and set fires.

1996, KISS appeared at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio on their 192 date Alive World Tour. During this show a fan threw his fake leg on stage, which all the members signed and handed back to him.

2000 – Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor and 30 years after its discovery by undersea explorer E. Lee Spence.

2008 – A EuroCity express train en route from Kraków, Poland to Prague, Czech Republic strikes a part of a motorway bridge that had fallen onto the railroad track near Studénka railway station in the Czech Republic and derails, killing eight people and injuring 64 others.

Births

1839 – Nelson A. Miles; 1879 – Bob Smith (co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous), Emiliano Zapata; 1884 – Sara Teasdale; 1891 – Adolf Busch:violin:; 1896 – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings; 1907 – Benny CarterAttachment 57522; 1919 – Dino De Laurentiis; 1921 – Webb Pierce♪ ♫, Esther Williams; 1922 – Rory Calhoun, Rudi Gernreich (created the Monokini); 1926 – Richard Anderson ('Oscar Goldman' in The Six Million Dollar Man); 1929 – Ronnie Biggs (committed The Great Train Robbery, on his 34th birthday):rtfm:; 1930 – Terry Nation, Jerry Tarkanian; 1932 – Mel Tillis♪ ♫; 1937 – Dustin Hoffman; 1938 – Connie Stevens♪ ♫; 1939 – Phil Balsley♪ ♫(The Statler Bros); 1940 – Dennis Tito; 1944 – Michael Johnson♪ ♫; 1947 – Larry Wilcox ('Jon Baker' in CHiPs); 1949 – Keith Carradine; 1950 – Liberty DeVitto:drummer:(Billy Joel), Willie Hall:drummer:; 1951 – Mohamed Morsi; 1952 – Anton Fig:drummer:(longtime drummer for David Letterman's house band); 1952 – Robin Quivers (The Howard Stern Show); 1953 – Nigel Mansell:driving:; 1955 – Branscombe Richmond (Renegade, Walker Texas Ranger); 1958 – Deborah Norville; 1961 – The Edge (aka Dave Evans):shred:(U2); 1961 – Bruce Matthews (NFL), Rikki Rockett;:drummer:(Poison); 1973 – Scott Stapp♪ ♫(Creed); 1976 – JC Chasez♪ ♫('N Sync); 1976 – Drew Lachey♪ ♫(98 Degrees)

Deaths

1863 – Angus MacAskill (Scottish-Canadian giant)<--Interesting read.; 1984 – Richard Deacon; 1991 – James Irwin; 2004 – Fay Wray; 2005 – Barbara Bel Geddes; 2010 – Patricia Neal; 2013 – Karen Black, Fernando Castro Pacheco:artist:, Jack Clement♪ ♫; 2014 – Menahem Golan

August 9

48 BC – Caesar's Civil War: Battle of Pharsalus: Julius Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus and Pompey flees to Egypt.

1173 – Construction of the campanile of the Cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) begins; it will take two centuries to complete.

1854 – Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden.

1892 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.

1930 – Betty Boop makes her cartoon debut in Dizzy Dishes.

1936 - Games of the XI Olympiad: Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal at the games.

1944 – The United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters featuring Smokey Bear for the first time.

1945 – World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar. 35,000 people are killed outright, including 23,200-28,200 Japanese war workers, 2,000 Korean forced workers, and 150 Japanese soldiers.

1965 – Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the only country to date to gain independence unwillingly.

1969 – Followers led by Charles Manson murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, men's hairstylist Jay Sebring and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent.

1974 – As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president.

1980 - AC/DC scored their first UK No.1 album with Back In Black. It was the first AC/DC album recorded without former lead singer Bon Scott (who died on 19 February 1980 at the age of 33), and was dedicated to him. The album has sold an estimated 49 million copies worldwide to date, making it the second highest selling album of all time, and the best selling hard rock or heavy metal album, as well as the best selling album ever released by a band.

2006 – At least 21 suspected terrorists were arrested in the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot that happened in the United Kingdom.

2014 – Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American male in Ferguson, Missouri, was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer, sparking protests and unrest in the city.

Births

1921 – Ernest Angley; 1927 – Daniel Keyes (Flowers For Algernon); 1939 – The Mighty Hannibal♪ ♫; 1942 – David Steinberg; 1943 – Ken Norton:boxers:; 1944 – Sam Elliott:devil:; 1957 – Melanie Griffith; 1959 – Kurtis Blow♪ ♫; 1963 – Whitney Houston♪ ♫; 1967 – Deion Sanders; 1968 – Gillian Anderson ('Scully' on The X Files), Eric Bana; 1972 – Juanes♪ ♫; 1973 – Kevin McKidd (Grey's Anatomy); 1976 – Jessica Capshaw (Grey's Anatomy), Rhona Mitra:heartpump, Audrey Tautou; 1982 – Tyson Gay:bolt:

Deaths

1516 – Hieronymus Bosch:artist:; 1948 – Hugo Boss; 1962 – Hermann Hesse; 1969 – Jay Sebring, Sharon Tate, Steven Parent; 1975 – Dmitri Shostakovich:keys:; 1995 – Jerry Garcia:shred:; 2003 – Gregory Hines; 2006 – James Van Allen (Van Allen Radiation Belts; 2008 – Bernie Mac; 2010 – Ted Stevens; 2015 – Frank Gifford

August 10

1519 – Ferdinand Magellan's five ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe. The Basque second-in-command Juan Sebastián Elcano will complete the expedition after Magellan's death in the Philippines.

1628 – The Swedish warship Vasa sank after sailing less than a nautical mile on her maiden voyage from Stockholm on her way to fight in the Thirty Years' War.

1675 – The foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London, England is laid.

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

1821 – Missouri is admitted as the 24th U.S. state.

1932 – A 5.1 kilograms (11 lb) chondrite-type meteorite breaks into at least seven pieces and lands near the town of Archie in Cass County, Missouri.

1961 – First use of Agent Orange in the Vietnam War by the U.S. Army.

1963 - 13 year-old Little Stevie Wonder started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Fingertips part II', making him the youngest singer to top the charts.

1969 – A day after murdering Sharon Tate and four others, members of Charles Manson's cult kill Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

1977 – In Yonkers, New York, 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz ("Son of Sam") is arrested for a series of killings in the New York City area over a period of one year.

1978 – Three members of the Ulrich family are killed in an accident. This leads to the Ford Pinto litigation.

1981 – Murder of Adam Walsh: The head of John Walsh's son is found. This inspires the creation of the television series America's Most Wanted.

1987 - Wilson Pickett was found guilty by a New Jersey court of possessing a shotgun with intent to endanger life following his involvement in a fist fight in a bar.

1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are indicted for the bombing. Michael Fortier pleads guilty in a plea-bargain for his testimony.

2002 - Lisa Marie Presley married actor Nicolas Cage at a resort in Hawaii. The marriage was Presley's third. She was married previously to musician Danny Keough and pop star Michael Jackson. Cage filed for divorce four months later.

2003 – The highest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom, 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in Kent, England. It is the first time the United Kingdom has recorded a temperature over 100 °F (38 °C).

Yuri Malenchenko becomes the first person to marry in outer space.

Births

1814 – Henri Nestlé (yeah, that Nestle); 1874 – Herbert Hoover (31st POTUS); 1889 – Charles Darrow (created the board game Monopoly); 1898 – Jack Haley♪ ♫; 1902 – Norma Shearer; 1909 – Leo Fender (Fender guitars and amps); 1913 – Noah Beery Jr.; 1914 – Jeff Corey; 1923 – Rhonda Fleming; 1924 – Martha Hyer; 1927 – Vernon Washington; 1928 – Jimmy Dean♪ ♫(sausage guy), Eddie Fisher♪ ♫; 1931 – Tom Laughlin (I'm gonna take this right foot, and I'm gonna whop you on that side of your face...and you wanna know something? There's not a damn thing you're gonna be able to do about it.); 1933 – Keith Duckworth (founded Cosworth); 1940 – Bobby Hatfield♪ ♫(The Righteous Bros); 1943 – Jimmy Griffin♪ ♫(Bread); 1943 – Ronnie Spector♪ ♫; 1947 – Ian Anderson:shred:(Jethro Tull); 1952 – Daniel Hugh Kelly; 1959 – Rosanna Arquette; 1960 – Antonio Banderas, Kenny Perry; 1961 – Jon Farriss:drummer:(INXS); 1967 – Riddick Bowe:boxers:; 1968 – Michael Bivins♪ ♫(Bell Biv DeVoe); 1972 – Angie Harmon:joylove:; 1997 – Kylie Jenner

Deaths

1932 – Rin Tin Tin; 1945 – Robert H. Goddard; 1963 – Estes Kefauver; 2008 – Isaac Hayes♪ ♫:keys:; 2013 – Eydie Gormé♪ ♫(Steve & Eydie); 2015 – Buddy Baker:driving:

Happy birthday Ian Anderson!

I heard Jethro Tull over the speakers at Safeway last night. Whoa.

August 11

3114 BC – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, notably the Mayans, begins.

1858 – The Eiger in the Bernese Alps is ascended for the first time by Charles Barrington accompanied by Christian Almer and Peter Bohren.

1929 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

1934 – The first civilian prisoners arrive at the Federal prison on Alcatraz Island.

1942 – Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones and Wi-Fi.

1968 – The last steam hauled train runs on British Rail.

1972 – Vietnam War: The last United States ground combat unit leaves South Vietnam.

1984 – "We begin bombing in five minutes": United States President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, jokes while preparing to make his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio.

2003 – NATO takes over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe in its 54-year-history.

2006 – The oil tanker M/T Solar 1 sinks off the coast of Guimaras and Negros Islands in the Philippines, causing the country's worst oil spill.

2015 – For the first time in Major League Baseball history, all 15 home teams won their game. Prior to this happening, the record was 12 which was reached over a century ago in 1914.

Births

1794 – James B. Longacre; 1897 – Enid Blyton; 1920 – Mike Douglas; 1921 – Alex Haley (Roots); 1925 – Arlene Dahl; 1926 – Claus von Bülow; 1933 – Jerry Falwell; 1943 – Jim Kale:bass:(The Guess Who), Pervez Musharraf, Denis Payton♪ ♫; 1946 – John Conlee♪ ♫, Marilyn vos Savant; 1949 – Eric Carmen♪ ♫; 1950 – Erik Brann:shred:(Iron Butterfly); 1950 – Steve Wozniak:typing:; 1952 – Bob Mothersbaugh:shred:(Devo); 1953 – Hulk Hogan; 1954 – Bryan Bassett:shred:(Wild Cherry, Foghat, and Molly Hatchet), Joe Jackson♪ ♫; 1957 – Richie Ramone:drummer:; 1965 – Embeth Davidtz, Viola Davis, Duane Martin, Shinji Mikami (created video game Resident Evil); 1967 – Joe Rogan; 1968 – Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad); 1978 – Chris Kelly♪ ♫(Kris Kross); 1983 – Chris Hemsworth

Deaths

1596 – Hamnet Shakespeare (Bill's boy); 1919 – Andrew Carnegie; 1937 – Edith Wharton; 1954 – Santo Trafficante, Sr. (mob boss); 1956 – Jackson Pollock:artist:; 1984 – Alfred A. Knopf, Sr.; 1988 – Anne Ramsey (Throw Momma from the Train); 1991 – J. D. McDuffie:driving:; 1994 – Peter Cushing; 1995 – Phil Harris♪ ♫ (the singer, not the captain of the Cornelia Marie); 1996 – Mel Taylor:drummer:(The Ventures); 2006 – Mike Douglas; 2009 – Eunice Kennedy Shriver; 2011 – Jani Lane:shred:(Warrant); 2012 – Michael Dokes:boxers:; 2014 – Robin Williams

August 12

In the United Kingdom today is The Glorious Twelfth, marking the traditional start of grouse shooting season.:shotgun:

1099 – First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon: Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.

1676 – Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.

1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.

1883 – The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

1898 – The Hawaiian flag is lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.

1944 – Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.

1953 – The first testing of a real thermonuclear weapon (not test devices): The Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of "RDS-6s" (Joe 4), the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb.

1958 – Art Kane photographs 57 notable jazz musicians in the black and white group portrait "A Great Day in Harlem" in front of a Brownstone in New York City.

1964 – Charlie Wilson, one of the Great Train Robbers, escapes from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, England, United Kingdom.

1968 - Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham played together for the first time when they rehearsed at a studio in Gerrard Street in London's West End. The first song they played was a version of 'The Train Kept A-Rollin.' They also played 'Smokestack Lightning' and a version of 'I'm Confused' (soon to become 'Dazed And Confused'). The first live dates they played were as The Yardbirds, and it was not until the following month when they started to use the name Led Zeppelin.

1977 – The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.

1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.

1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the deadliest single-aircraft accident in history.

1989 - The two day Moscow Music Peace Festival was held at Lenin Stadium in Moscow, Russia. Western Acts who appeared included Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne, Bon Jovi, Skid Row and The Scorpions. This was the first time that an audience had been allowed to stand up and dance at a stadium rock concert in the Soviet Union. Previous to this, all concerts had to be seated.

1990 – Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found to date, is discovered by Sue Hendrickson in South Dakota.

1992 – Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

1994 – Major League Baseball players go on strike. This will force the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.

2000 – The Oscar-class submarine Kursk of the Russian Navy explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise.

During an outdoor gig in Mancos, California, as 38 Special were mid-set, the wind took hold of an overhead canopy and brought down ten tons of equipment onto the stage. The drum kit was completely crushed, but no one was seriously injured.

2015 – At least two massive explosions kill 145 people and injure nearly 800 in Tianjin, China.

Births

1773 – Karl Faber; 1856 – Diamond Jim Brady; 1860 – Klara Hitler (Adolf's mammy); 1881 – Cecil B. DeMille; 1907 – Joe Besser ('Joe' of The Three Stooges); 1910 – Jane Wyatt; 1925 – Norris & Ross McWhirter (co-founded the Guinness World Records); 1926 – John Derek, Joe Jones♪ ♫; 1927 – Porter Wagoner♪ ♫; 1929 – Buck Owens♪ ♫; 1930 – George $oro$; 1933 – Parnelli Jones:driving:; 1935 – John Cazale; 1939 – George Hamilton; 1949 – Mark Knopfler:shred:; 1954 – Pat Metheny:shred:; 1956 – Bruce Greenwood; 1961 – Roy Hay:shred::keys:; 1963 – Sir Mix-a-Lot:moon:; 1971 – Rebecca Gayheart, Pete Sampras; 1975 – Casey Affleck; 1980 – Dominique Swain; 1988 – Tyson Fury:boxers:; 1992 – Cara Delevingne

Deaths

30 BC– Cleopatra; 1827 – William Blake:artist:; 1861 – Eliphalet Remington (Remington Arms Co.); 1891 – James Russell Lowell; 1944 – Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.; 1964 – Ian Fleming; 1982 – Henry Fonda; 1990 – B. Kliban; 1992 – John Cage♪ ♫; 2000 – Loretta Young; 2002 – Enos Slaughter; 2007 – Merv Griffin; 2009 – Les Paul:shred:; 2010 – Richie Hayward:drummer:; 2014 – Lauren Bacall

Hehheeee at sir mixalot smilie.

Quagga. Learned something new.

:)

August 13

1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Royal Navy defeats the Penobscot Expedition with the most significant loss of United States naval forces prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1831 – Nat Turner witnesses a solar eclipse which caused the sky to appear a blue-green color, which he envisioned as a black man's hand reaching over the sun. Eight days later he and 70 other slaves kill between 55-65 whites in Southampton County, Virginia.

1868 – A massive earthquake near Arica, Peru, causes an estimated 25,000 casualties, and the subsequent tsunami causes considerable damage as far away as Hawaii and New Zealand.

1898 – Spanish–American War: Spanish and American forces engage in a mock battle for Manila, after which the Spanish commander surrendered in order to keep the city out of Filipino rebel hands.

Carl Gustav Witt discovers 433 Eros, the first near-Earth asteroid to be found.

1906 – The all black infantrymen of the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Regiment are accused of killing a white bartender and wounding a white police officer in Brownsville, Texas, despite exculpatory evidence; all are later dishonorably discharged. Their records were later restored to reflect honorable discharges but there were no financial settlements.

1918 – Women enlist in the United States Marine Corps for the first time. Opha May Johnson is the first woman to enlist, at the age of 39.

1942 – Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the "Development of Substitute Materials" project, better known as the Manhattan Project.

1942 – Walt Disney's fifth full-length animated film, Bambi, was released to theaters.

1952 - The original version of 'Hound Dog' was recorded by Big Mama Thornton. It would become the first hit for the song-writing team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

1961 – East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin to thwart its inhabitants' attempts to escape to the West.

1964 – Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans are hanged for the Murder of John Alan West becoming the last people executed in the United Kingdom.

1965 - Jefferson Airplane made their live debut at San Francisco's Matrix Club. The photograph of the members of Jefferson Airplane that was featured on the front cover of their best-known album, Surrealistic Pillow (1967), was taken inside the Matrix.

1967 - Fleetwood Mac made their live debut when they appeared at the National Jazz and Blues Festival in Windsor.

1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine to enjoy a ticker tape parade in New York City That evening, at a state dinner in Los Angeles, they are awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Richard Nixon.

1971 - John Lennon flew from Heathrow Airport to New York, he never set foot on British soil again.

1980 - Four masked robbers broke in to Todd Rundgren's New York house and proceeded to steal Hi-Fi equipment and paintings after tying the musician up.

1997 – The first episode of the American animated series South Park premiered on Comedy Central.

Births

1814 – Anders Jonas Ångström; 1860 – Annie Oakley; 1888 – John Logie Baird (invented the television, And there was much rejoicing.); 1895 – Bert Lahr; 1898 – Regis Toomey; 1899 – Alfred Hitchcock; 1902 – Felix Wankel (namesake of the Wankel (rotary) engine); 1904 – Buddy Rogers♪ ♫; 1912 – Ben Hogan; 1919 – Rex Humbard; 1920 – Neville Brand; 1926 – Fidel Castro; 1929 – Pat Harrington, Jr. ('Schneider' on One Day At A Time); 1930 – Don Ho♪ ♫(sang Tiny Bubbles); 1933 – Joycelyn Elders; 1951 – Dan Fogelberg♪ ♫; 1952 – Tom Davis ("Franken & Davis" from SNL); 1955 – Paul Greengrass (director Jason Bourne movie series); 1958 – David Feherty; 1959 – Danny Bonaduce (Danny Partridge on The Partridge Family); 1961 – Sam Champion; 1962 – John Slattery ('Roger Sterling' on Mad Men); 1963 – Valerie Plame (former CIA agent); 1964 – Debi Mazar; 1969 – Midori Ito (Japanese figure skater); 1970 – Elvis Grbac (NFL); 1971 – Patrick Carpentier:driving:

Deaths

1910 – Florence Nightingale; 1946 – H. G. Wells; 1971 – W. O. Bentley:driving:(founded Bentley Motors Limited); 1989 – Tim Richmond:driving:; 1995 – Mickey Mantle; 2004 – Julia Child; 2007 – Brooke Astor, Phil Rizzuto; 2010 – Edwin Newman; 2012 – Helen Gurley Brown; 2013 – Tompall Glaser♪ ♫; 2016 – Kenny Baker ('R2D2' in Star Wars)

August 15

Today the U.K. observes Victory Over Japan Day.

1281 – Mongol invasion of Japan: The Mongolian fleet of Kublai Khan is destroyed by a "divine wind" for the second time in the Battle of Kōan.

1812 – War of 1812: The Battle of Fort Dearborn is fought between United States troops and Potawatomi at what is now Chicago.

1843 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoli_Gardens

1914 – A servant of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright murders seven people and sets fire to the living quarters of Wright's Wisconsin home, Taliesin.

The Panama Canal opens to traffic with the transit of the cargo ship SS Ancon.

1935 – Will Rogers and Wiley Post are killed after their aircraft develops engine problems during takeoff in Barrow, Alaska.

1939 – Thirteen Stukas dive into the ground during a disastrous air-practice at Neuhammer. There are no survivors.

1941 – Corporal Josef Jakobs is executed by firing squad at the Tower of London at 07:12, making him the last person to be executed at the Tower for espionage.

1945 – Effective surrender of Japan in World War II, Korea gains Independence from Japan.

1948 – The Republic of Korea is established south of the 38th parallel north.

1963 – Execution of Henry John Burnett, the last man to be hanged in Scotland.

1965 – The Beatles play to nearly 60,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York City, an event later regarded as the birth of stadium rock.

1969 – The Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era.

1977 – The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the "Wow! signal" from the notation made by a volunteer on the project.

2013 – The Smithsonian announces the discovery of the olinguito, the first new carnivoran species found in the Americas in 35 years.

Births

1195 – Anthony of Padua; 1769 – Napoleon; 1824 – John Chisum; 1875 – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; 1879 – Ethel Barrymore; 1885 – Edna Ferber; 1896 - Leon Theremin (invented the theremin); 1912 – Julia Child; 1923 – Rose Marie; 1925 – Mike Connors (Mannix:devil:), Bill Pinkney♪ ♫(The Drifters); 1933 – Bobby Helms ♫♪(Jingle Bell Rock); 1938 – Stephen Breyer (Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States); 1941 – Don Rich♪ ♫:shred::violin:(Buck Owens' band The Buckaroos); 1944 – Linda Ellerbee; 1950 – Tommy Aldridge:drummer:; 1952 – Chuck Burgi:drummer:; 1954 – Stieg Larsson (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo & others); 1964 – Melinda Gates (Bill's main squeeze); 1968 – Debra Messing; 1970 – Anthony Anderson; 1972 – Ben Affleck; 1974 – Natasha Henstridge; 1978 – Kerri Walsh Jennings (volleyball player); 1989 – Joe Jonas (The Jonas Bros); 1990 – Jennifer Lawrence:joylove:

Deaths

1057 – Macbeth, King of Scotland; 1621 – John Barclay; 1935 – Wiley Post, Will Rogers; 1951 – Artur Schnabel:keys:; 1967 – René Magritte:artist:; 1995 – John Cameron Swayze (as Timex spokesman, said "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking."); 2008 – Jerry Wexler♫♪

August 16

1328 – The House of Gonzaga seizes power in the Duchy of Mantua, and will rule until 1708.

1841 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.

1896 – Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmack and Dawson Charlie discover gold in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.

1913 – Completion of the Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary.

1920 – Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians is hit on the head by a fastball thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees, and dies early the next day. Chapman was the second player to die from injuries sustained in a Major League Baseball game, the first being Doc Powers, in 1909.

1927 – The Dole Air Race begins from Oakland, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, during which six out of the eight participating planes crash or disappear.

1930 – The first color sound cartoon, called Fiddlesticks, is made by Ub Iwerks.

1942 – World War II: The two-person crew of the U.S. naval blimp L-8 disappears without a trace on a routine anti-submarine patrol over the Pacific Ocean. The blimp drifts without her crew and crash-lands in Daly City, California.

1954 – The first issue of Sports Illustrated is published.

1960 – Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,300 m), setting three records that held until 2012: High-altitude jump, free fall, and highest speed by a human without an aircraft.

1962 – The famous lineup of The Beatles is formed when drummer Pete Best is discharged from the band, and Ringo Starr is brought on.

1969 - Hippie leader Abbie Hoffman was knocked offstage by Pete Townshend while attempting to make a political statement during The Who's set at Woodstock. Later, Townshend said he didn't know it was Hoffman at the time.

1975 - Peter Gabriel announced that he was leaving Genesis. The group auditioned more than 400 singers during the next 18 months before deciding that Phil Collins, who had been the drummer for Genesis since 1970, could front the band.

1977 – Elvis Presley, "The King of Rock and Roll", was officially pronounced dead at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, after he was found unresponsive on the floor of his Graceland bathroom.

1989 – A solar flare from the Sun creates a geomagnetic storm that affects micro chips, leading to a halt of all trading on Toronto's stock market.

1997 - On the 20th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death over 30,000 fans descended on Memphis Tennessee for a 10-minute mourning circuit circling his grave. A poll found that almost a third of the fans were keeping an eye out for him in the crowd.

2008 – The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago is topped off at 1,389 feet (423 m), at the time becoming the world's highest residence above ground-level.

Births

1888 – T. E. Lawrence; 1892 – Hal Foster (created comic strip Prince Valiant); 1892 – Otto Messmer (co-created Felix the Cat); 1920 – Charles Bukowski; 1924 – Fess Parker; 1928 – Eydie Gormé♪ ♫, Eddie Kirkland♪ ♫; 1930 – Robert Culp, Frank Gifford; 1933 – Julie Newmar; 1939 – Billy Joe Shaver♪ ♫; 1940 – Bruce Beresford; 1945 – Bob Balaban; 1946 – Lesley Ann Warren; 1948 – Barry Hay♪ ♫(Golden Earring); 1953 – Kathie Lee Gifford, James "J.T." Taylor♪ ♫(Kool & The Gang); 1954 – James Cameron; 1957 – Laura Innes (ER); 1958 – Madonna♪ ♫, Angela Bassett; 1960 – Timothy Hutton; 1962 – Steve Carell; 1963 – Christine Cavanaugh (voice of 'Dexter' in Dexter's Laboratory); 1972 – Emily Robison:shred:(Dixie Chicks); 1975 – George Stults (7th Heaven)

Deaths

1705 – Jacob Bernoulli; 1888 – John Pemberton (invented Coca-Cola); 1899 – Robert Bunsen (Bunsen burner); 1938 – Robert Johnson:shred:; 1948 – Babe Ruth; 1949 – Margaret Mitchell (author Gone With The Wind); 1956 – Bela Lugosi; 1959 – William 'Bull' Halsey, Jr.; 1977 – Elvis Presley♪ ♫; 1989 – Amanda Blake ('Miss Kitty Russell' on Gunsmoke); 1993 – Stewart Granger; 2002 – Jeff Corey; 2003 – Idi Amin; 2005 – Vassar Clements:violin:; 2007 – Max Roach:drummer:

In His honor

August 17

1771 – Edinburgh botanist James Robertson makes the first recorded ascent of Ben Nevis in Scotland.

1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.

1862 – American Indian Wars: The Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota as Lakota warriors attack white settlements along the Minnesota River.

1896 – Bridget Driscoll is run over by a Benz car in the grounds of The Crystal Palace, London, the UK's first pedestrian motoring fatality.

1907 – Pike Place Market, a popular tourist destination and registered historic district in Seattle, opens.

1915 – Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl in Marietta, Georgia, United States.

1953 – Narcotics Anonymous meets for the first time, in Southern California.

1959 – Quake Lake is formed by the magnitude 7.5 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake near Hebgen Lake in Montana.

Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, the much acclaimed and highly influential best selling jazz recording of all time, is released.

1962 – Peter Fechter is shot and bleeds to death while trying to cross the new Berlin Wall.

1969 – Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing 256 and causing $1.42 billion in damage.

The final day of the 3 day Woodstock Festival took place at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York.

1977 – The Soviet icebreaker Arktika becomes the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.

1978 – Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it lands in Miserey, France near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.

1980 – Azaria Chamberlain disappears, at Ayers Rock, Northern Territory, probably taken by a dingo, leading to what was then the most publicized trial in Australian history.

1982 – The first compact discs (CDs) are released to the public in Germany.

1998 – Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about the relationship.

1999 – A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes İzmit, Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.

2005 – Over 500 bombs are set off by terrorists at 300 locations in 63 out of the 64 districts of Bangladesh.

2009 – An accident at the Sayano–Shushenskaya Dam in Khakassia, Russia, kills 75 and shuts down the hydroelectric power station, leading to widespread power failure in the local area.

Births

1786 – Davy Daaaaaavy Crockett (king of the wild frontier); 1888 – Monty Woolley; 1893 – Mae West; 1896 – Leslie Groves***; 1907 – Gustav Schwarzenegger (Arnold's papa); 1913 – Mark Felt (Asst Director FBI, Woodward & Bernstein's 'Deep Throat'); 1920 – Maureen O'Hara; 1929 – Francis Gary Powers (U2 pilot); 1933 – Glenn Corbett ('Pat Garrett' in Chisum); 1936 – Floyd Red Crow Westerman ('Chief Ten Bears' in Dances with Wolves); 1943 – Robert De Niro; 1944 – Larry Ellison (co-founded Oracle Corp); 1952 – Nelson Piquet:driving:; 1954 – Eric Johnson♪ ♫:shred:; 1957 – Robin Cousins; 1958 – Belinda Carlisle♪ ♫(The Go-Gos); 1959 – David Koresh (leader Branch Davidians cult); 1960 – Sean Penn; 1961 – Larry B. Scott (Revenge of the Nerds); 1962 – Gilby Clarke:shred:(Guns N' Roses); 1967 – David Conrad(Ghost Whisperer); 1968 – Andrew Koenig ('Boner' on Growing Pains); 1969 – Donnie Wahlberg; 1970 – Jim Courier; 1974 – Giuliana Rancic

Deaths

1785 – Jonathan Trumbull; 1880 – Ole Bull:violin:; 1973 – Paul Williams♪ ♫(The Temptations); 1976 – William Redfield (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest); 1979 – Vivian Vance ('Ethel Mertz' on I Love Lucy); 1983 – Ira Gershwin♪ ♫; 1987 – Rudolf Hess; 1990 – Pearl Bailey♪ ♫

August 18

Today is Long Tan Day in Australia, commemorating Australian losses at the Battle of Long Tan.

1587 – Virginia Dare, granddaughter of Governor John White of the Colony of Roanoke, becomes the first English child born in the Americas.

1590 – John White, the governor of the Roanoke Colony, returns from a supply trip to England, and finds his settlement deserted.

1612 – The trial of the Pendle witches, one of England's most famous witch trials, begins at Lancaster Assizes.

1783 – A huge fireball meteor is seen across Great Britain as it passes over the east coast.

1903 – German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flies his self-made, motored gliding airplane four months before the first flight of the Wright brothers.

1917 – A Great Fire in Thessaloniki, Greece destroys 32% of the city leaving 70,000 individuals homeless.

1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage.

1940 – World War II: The Hardest Day air battle, part of the Battle of Britain. At that point, the largest aerial engagement in history with heavy losses sustained on both sides.

1958 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.

1963 – American civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first black student to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

1966 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Long Tan ensues after a patrol from the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment clashes with a Viet Cong force in Phước Tuy Province.

1976 – In the Korean Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom, the Axe murder incident results in the death of two US soldiers.<---Interesting read.

2005 – A massive power blackout hits the Indonesian island of Java, affecting almost 100 million people, one of the largest and most widespread power outages in history.

Births

1774 – Meriwether Lewis (Lewis and Clark Expedition); 1834 – Marshall Field (founded Marshall Field's, duh.); 1904 – Max Factor, Jr. (Max Factor Cosmetics); 1917 – Caspar Weinberger (former United States Secretary of Defense); 1920 – Shelley Winters; 1927 – Rosalynn Carter (former FLOTUS); 1933 – Roman Polanski; 1934 – Vincent Bugliosi (prosecutor in the Tate-LaBianca murder case in 1969); 1934 – Roberto Clemente; 1935 – Gail Fisher (secretary 'Peggy Fair' on Mannix); 1936 – Robert Redford; 1939 – Johnny Preston♪ ♫; 1943 – Martin Mull; 1950 – Dennis Elliott:drummer:(Foreigner); 1952 – Elayne Boosler:biggrinje, Patrick Swayze; 1957 – Denis Leary, Ron Strykert:shred:(Men At Work); 1958 – Madeleine Stowe; 1961 – Bob Woodruff; 1962 – Felipe Calderón; 1969 – Everlast♪ ♫, Edward Norton, Christian Slater; 1970 – Malcolm-Jamal Warner; 1971 – Aphex Twin♪ ♫(dj); 1978 – Andy Samberg

Deaths

1227 – Genghis Khan; 1707 – William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire; 1850 – Honoré de Balzacsnicker; 1886 – Eli Whitney Blake (invented the Mortise lock); 1919 – Joseph E. Seagram (yeah, that Seagram); 1940 – Walter Chrysler (yeah, that Chrysler); 1981 – Anita Loos; 2004 – Elmer Bernstein♪ ♫; 2009 – Robert Novak; 2014 – Don Pardo

August 19

1612 – The "Samlesbury witches", three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, England, are put on trial, accused of practicing witchcraft, one of the most famous witch trials in British history.

1692 – Salem witch trials: In Salem, Province of Massachusetts Bay, five people, one woman and four men, including a clergyman, are executed after being convicted of witchcraft. Historically, a bad day for witches, I guess.

1782 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Blue Licks: The last major engagement of the war, fought near the Licking River in what is now Robertson County, Kentucky, almost ten months after the surrender of the British commander Charles Cornwallis following the Siege of Yorktown.

1839 – The French government announces that Louis Daguerre's photographic process is a gift "free to the world".

1848 – California Gold Rush: The New York Herald breaks the news to the East Coast of the United States of the gold rush in California (although the rush started in January).

1854 – The First Sioux War begins when United States Army soldiers kill Lakota chief Conquering Bear and in return are massacred.

1895 – American frontier murderer and outlaw John Wesley Hardin is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.

1909 – The first automobile race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

1934 – The first All-American Soap Box Derby is held in Dayton, Ohio.

1940 – First flight of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.

1942 – World War II: Operation Jubilee: The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division leads an amphibious assault by allied forces on Dieppe, France and fails, many Canadians are killed or captured. The operation was intended to develop and try new amphibious landing tactics for the coming full invasion in Normandy.

1953 – The intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States orchestrated a coup d'état of Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh, and restored the absolute monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

1960 – Cold War: In Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union, downed American U-2 (the plane, not the band) pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.

1960 – Sputnik program: Korabl-Sputnik 2: The Soviet Union launches the satellite with the dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, two rats and a variety of plants.

1981 – Gulf of Sidra Incident: United States fighters intercept and shoot down two Libyan Sukhoi Su-22 fighter jets over the Gulf of Sidra.

1987 – Hungerford massacre: In the United Kingdom, Michael Ryan kills sixteen people with a semi-automatic rifle and then commits suicide.

1988 - 'Crazy' by Patsy Cline and Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' were announced as the most played jukebox songs of the first hundred years. The jukebox had been around since 1906, but earlier models had been first seen in 1889.

1989 – Radio Caroline, the offshore pirate station in the North Sea, is raided by British and Dutch governments.

Several hundred East Germans cross the frontier between Hungary and Austria during the Pan-European Picnic, part of the events that began the process of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest while on holiday in the town of Foros, Ukraine.

Crown Heights riot: Black groups target Hasidic Jews on the streets of Crown Heights in New York City for three days, after two black children were hit by a car driven by a Hasidic man.

2002 – Khankala Mi-26 crash: A Russian Mil Mi-26 helicopter carrying troops is hit by a Chechen missile outside Grozny, killing 118 soldiers. The world's deadliest single helicopter crash.

2005 - A life-size bronze statue of Phil Lynott, designed by Paul Daly, was unveiled on Harry Street in Dublin. The ceremony was attended by his former Thin Lizzy band members Gary Moore, Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham.

Births

1871 – Orville Wright (Wright Bros); 1883 – Coco Chanel; 1902 – Ogden Nash; 1906 – Philo Farnsworth; 1915 – Ring Lardner, Jr.; 1919 – Malcolm Forbes; 1921 – Gene Roddenberry; 1926 – Angus Scrimm ('The Tall Man' in Phantasm); 1930 – Frank McCourt (author Angela's Ashes); 1931 – Bill 'Willie' Shoemaker (jockey); 1933 – Debra Paget; 1938 – Diana Muldaur; 1939 – Ginger Baker:drummer:(Cream); 1940 – Johnny Nash♪ ♫; 1940 – Jill St. John; 1942 – Fred Thompson; 1944 – Eddy Raven♪ ♫; 1945 – Ian Gillan♪ ♫; 1946 – Charles Bolden (Administrator of NASA), Bill ' Slick Willie' Clinton (42nd POTUS); 1948 – Gerald McRaney (Simon & Simon, Major Dad); 1951 – John Deacon:bass:(Queen); 1952 – Jonathan Frakes('Riker' on Star Trek: TNG); 1955 – Peter Gallagher; 1956 – Adam Arkin; 1957 – Martin Donovan; 1961 – Tony Longo; 1963 – John Stamos; 1965 – Kevin Dillon, Kyra Sedgwick; 1966 – Lee Ann Womack♪ ♫; 1967 – Satya Nadella (CEO Microsoft); 1969 – Nate Dogg♪ ♫, Matthew Perry, Clay Walker♪ ♫

Deaths

1662 – Blaise Pascal; 1895 – John Wesley Hardin; 1936 – Federico García Lorca; 1959 – Blind Willie McTell♪ ♫; 1975 – Mark Donohue:driving:; 1977 – Groucho Marx; 1980 – Otto Frank (Anne's papa); 2008 – LeRoi Moore♪ ♫(DMB); 2009 – Don Hewitt (created 60 Minutes)

August 20

1000 – The foundation of the Hungarian state by Saint Stephen, celebrated as a National Day in Hungary.

1775 – The Spanish establish the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in the town that became Tucson, Arizona.

1794 – Battle of Fallen Timbers: American troops force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi warriors into a disorganized retreat.

1858 – Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.

1866 – President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.

1882 – Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.

1920 – The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit.

1938 – Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam, a record that stood for 75 years until it was broken by Alex Rodriguez.

1940 – In Mexico City, Mexico exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day.

World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".

1962 – The NS Savannah(<--Interesting read), the world's first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarks on its maiden voyage.

1986 - Rick Allen, drummer with Def Leppard made his first live appearance with the band after losing an arm in a car accident, when they appeared at the Monsters Of Rock Festival, Castle Donington, England.

1988 – "Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park.

1992 - A US Doctor filed a $35m lawsuit against the Southwest Bell phone company. He alleged that his wife died because he could not reach 911 due to all lines being jammed by demand of Garth Brooks concert tickets.

Births

1833 – Benjamin Harrison (23rd POTUS); 1873 – Eliel Saarinen; 1890 – H. P. Lovecraft; 1910 – Eero Saarinen; 1923 – Jim Reeves♪ ♫; 1931 – Don King:speechls:; 1935 – Ron Paul; 1942 – Isaac Hayes♪ ♫; 1946 – Connie Chung; 1947 – James Pankow♪ ♫(Chicago), Ray Wise; 1948 – Robert Plant♪ ♫(Led Zeppelin); 1949 – Phil Lynott:bass:(Thin Lizzy); 1951 – Mohamed Morsi; 1952 – Doug Fieger:shred(The Knack); 1952 – John Hiatt♪ ♫; 1954 – Al Roker; 1956 – Joan Allen; 1965 – KRS-One♪ ♫; 1966 – Dimebag Darrell:shred::devil:(Pantera); 1969 – Billy Gardell (Mike & Molly); 1970 – Fred Durst♪ ♫(Limp Bizkit); 1992 – Demi Lovato♪ ♫

Deaths

1384 – Geert Groote (He was Groote.); 1974 – Buford Pusser; 2006 – Joe Rosenthal (took the Raising The Flag At Iwo Jima photo); 2007 – Leona Helmsley, The Queen of Mean; 2012 – Phyllis Diller; 2013 – Elmore Leonard

August 21

1680 – Pueblo Indians capture Santa Fe from the Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt.

1770 – James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

1831 – Nat Turner leads black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, which will claim the lives of 55-65 whites.

1863 – Lawrence, Kansas is destroyed by Confederate guerrillas Quantrill's Raiders in the Lawrence Massacre.

1883 – An F5 tornado strikes Rochester, Minnesota, leading to the creation of the Mayo Clinic.

1897 – Oldsmobile, a brand of American automobiles, is founded.

1911 – The Mona Lisa is stolen by a Louvre employee.

1945 – Physicist Harry Daghlian is fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1959 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. Hawaii's admission is currently commemorated by Hawaii Admission Day.

1961 – Motown releases what would be its first #1 hit, "Please Mr. Postman" by The Marvelettes.

Patsy Cline recorded the classic Willie Nelson song, ‘Crazy’. Cline was still on crutches after going through a car windshield in a head-on collision two months earlier and had difficulty reaching the high notes of the song at first due to her broken ribs.

1983 - Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone had a four-hour brain surgery operation, after being found unconscious in a New York Street where he had been involved in a fight.

1986 – Carbon dioxide gas erupts from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing up to 1,800 people within a range of 20-kilometers.

1991 – Coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev collapses.

1993 – NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

Births

1904 – Count Basie:keys:; 1906 – Friz Freleng (introduced and/or developed Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam and Speedy Gonzales); 1920 – Christopher Robin Milne (A.A. Milne's son, and the basis for 'Christopher Robin' in Winnie The Pooh); 1924 – Jack Buck, Jack Weston; 1932 – Melvin Van Peebles; 1936 – Wilt The Stilt Chamberlain; 1938 – Kenny Rogers♪ ♫; 1939 – Harold Reid♪ ♫(The Statler Bros); 1939 – Clarence Williams III ('Linc' on The Mod Squad); 1944 – Jackie DeShannon♪ ♫, Peter Weir; 1945 – Basil Poledouris♪ ♫; 1949 – Loretta Devine (Grey's Anatomy); 1950 – Arthur Bremer (shot George Wallace); 1951 – Harry Smith; 1952 – Glenn Hughes♪ ♫; 1952 – Joe Strummer:shred:(The Clash); 1954 – Steve 'Machine Gun' Smith:drummer:(Journey); 1956 – Kim Cattrall:love:; 1957 - Kim Sledge♪ ♫(Sister Sledge); 1959 – Jim McMahon (da Bears); 1961 – Stephen Hillenburg (created SpongeBob Squarepants); 1962 – Jeff Stryker (porn actor); 1963 – Richmond Arquette (of the acting Arquettes); 1967 – Carrie-Anne Moss (Matrix Trilogy), Serj Tankian♪ ♫(System of a Down); 1973 – Sergey Brin (cofounded the Google); 1979 – Kelis (her Milkshake brings all the boys to the yard); 1980 – Paul Menard:driving:; 1981 – Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss; 1986 – Usain Bolt:bolt:, Kacey Musgraves♪ ♫; 1989 – Hayden Panettiere:heartpump; 1990 – Bo Burnham

Deaths

1614 – Elizabeth Báthory; 1940 – Leon Trotsky; 1947 – Ettore Bugatti (yes, that one); 1974 – Buford Pusser(corrected); 1978 – Charles Eames (co-designed the Eames House); 1983 – Benigno Aquino, Jr.; 1988 – Ray Eames (co-designed the Eames House); 2005 – Robert Moog♪ ♫

August 22

565 – Columba reports seeing a monster in Loch Ness, Scotland.

1485 – The Battle of Bosworth Field, the death of Richard III and the end of the House of Plantagenet.

1642 – Charles I raises his standard in Nottingham, which marks the beginning of the English Civil War.

1711 – Britain's Quebec Expedition loses eight ships and almost nine hundred soldiers, sailors and women to rocks at Pointe-aux-Anglais.

1777 – American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold used a ruse to convince the British that a much larger force was arriving, causing them to abandon the Siege of Fort Stanwix.

1849 – The first air raid in history. Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice.

1851 – The first America's Cup is won by the yacht America.

1864 – Twelve nations sign the first Geneva Convention.

1902 – Cadillac Motor Company is founded.

Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to ride in an automobile.

1941 – World War II: German troops begins the Siege of Leningrad.

1950 – Althea Gibson becomes the first black competitor in international tennis.

1952 – The penal colony on Devil's Island is permanently closed.

1962 - The first TV appearance of The Beatles was recorded by Manchester based Granada TV, who filmed a lunchtime session at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, (the performance was shown on 17th October 1962).

1963 – X-15 Flight 91 reaches the highest altitude of the X-15 program (107.96 km (67.08 mi) (354,200 feet)).

1968 - Ringo Starr quit The Beatles during The White Album sessions when the constant bickering and tension became too much for him. The news of Ringo's departure was kept secret, and he rejoined the sessions on September 3rd. After Ringo walked out, the remaining Beatles recorded 'Back In the USSR', with Paul on drums and John playing bass.

1979 - In Through the Out Door was released in the US, Led Zeppelin's last album while all four members were alive.

1989 – Nolan Ryan strikes out Rickey Henderson to become the first Major League Baseball pitcher to record 5,000 strikeouts.

1992 – FBI HRT sniper Lon Horiuchi shoots and kills Vicki Weaver during an 11-day siege at her home at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

2004 – Versions of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway.

Al Dvorin, the announcer who popularised the phrase "Elvis has left the building", died in a car crash, on his way home from an Elvis Presley convention in California. In the early 1970s, Colonel Parker asked Dvorin to inform fans at a gig that Presley would not be appearing for an encore. He took the stage and announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building. Thank you and goodnight."

2007 – The Texas Rangers defeat the Baltimore Orioles 30–3, the most runs scored by a team in modern Major League Baseball history. The combined run total is also Major League record.

The Storm botnet, a botnet created by the Storm Worm, sends out a record 57 million e-mails in one day.

2015 – Eleven people are killed in England when a vintage Hawker Hunter jet crashes on the A27 in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex.

Births

1862 – Claude Debussy:keys:; 1893 – Dorothy Parker; 1898 – Alexander Calder:artist:; 1902 – Leni Riefenstahl; 1904 – Deng Xiaoping; 1908 – Henri Cartier-Bresson:artist:; 1917 – John Lee Hooker:shred:; 1920 – Ray Bradbury; 1924 – James Kirkwood, Jr. (playwright A Chorus Line); 1925 – Honor Blackman ('Pussy Galore' in Goldfinger); 1934 – Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr.; 1936 – Chuck Brown♪ ♫(The Godfather of Go-Go), Dale Hawkins♪ ♫; 1939 – Valerie Harper, Carl Yastrzemski; 1941 – Bill Parcells; 1945 – David Chase; 1947 – Donna Jean Godchaux♪ ♫, Cindy Williams; 1950 – Scooter Libby; 1958 – Colm Feore, Vernon Reid:shred:(Living Colur); 1959 – Juan Croucier:bass:(Ratt); 1961 – Debbi Peterson:drummer:(The Bangles); 1963 – Tori Amos:keys:; 1967 – Ty Burrell (Modern Family); 1967 – Layne Staley♪ ♫(Alice In Chains); 1970 – Giada De Laurentiis:love:; 1972 – Paul Doucette:drummer::shred:(Matchbox Twenty); 1973 – Kristen Wiig; 1987 – Karlie Simon (porn actress)

Deaths

1922 – Michael Collins; 1977 – Sebastian Cabot; 1980 – James Smith McDonnell (of McDonnell-Douglas); 1991 – Colleen Dewhurst; 2004 - Al Dvorin; 2006 – Bruce Gary:drummer:(The Knack); 2011 – Nick Ashford♪ ♫(Ashford & Simpson), Jerry Leiber♪ ♫; 2012 – Jeffrey Stone (was the model and inspiration for 'Prince Charming' in Cinderella)

August 23

30 BC – After the successful invasion of Egypt, Octavian executes Marcus Antonius Antyllus, eldest son of Mark Antony, and Caesarion, the last king of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt and only child of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.

79 – Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. The next day turns out to be a complete, and total bummer.

1305 – Sir William Wallace is executed for high treason at Smithfield in London.

1382 – Siege of Moscow: The Golden Horde led by khan Tokhtamysh lays siege to the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

1541 – French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: King George III delivers his Proclamation of Rebellion to the Court of St James's stating that the American colonies have proceeded to a state of open and avowed rebellion.

1784 – Western North Carolina (now eastern Tennessee) declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; it is not accepted into the United States, and only lasts for four years.

1858 – The Round Oak rail accident occurs in Brierley Hill in the Black Country, England. It is 'Arguably the worst disaster ever to occur on British railways'.

1901 – Six hundred American school teachers, Thomasites, arrived in Manila on the USAT Thomas.

1904 – The automobile tire chain is patented.

1921 – British airship R-38 experiences structural failure over Hull in England and crashes in the Humber estuary. Of her 49 British and American training crew, only four survive.

1923 – Captain Lowell Smith and Lieutenant John P. Richter performed the first mid-air refueling on De Havilland DH-4B, setting an endurance flight record of 37 hours.

1927 – Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti are executed after a lengthy, controversial trial.

1942 – World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad.

1944 – World War II: King Michael of Romania dismisses the pro-Nazi government of Marshal Antonescu, who is arrested. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies.

1954 – First flight of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.

1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

1967 - (speaking of the Moon...) Enjoying a wild birthday party, Keith Moon, drummer with The Who, drove his Lincoln car into a Holiday Inn swimming pool. As the party had become out of control, the police were called to put an end to the festivities. Moon, ever keen to avoid the boys in blue, sneaked outside and got into a Lincoln Continental Limousine and attempted to make a getaway. Unfortunately, in his inebriated state he released the handbrake, and began rolling towards the pool. Moon simply sat back and waited, as the car crashed through the fence around the pool, and into the water.

1970 - Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground performed together for the last time at the New York Club 'Max's Kansas City'. Reed worked as a typist for his father for the next two years, at $40 per week.

1973 – A bank robbery gone wrong in Stockholm, Sweden, turns into a hostage crisis; over the next five days the hostages begin to sympathize with their captors, leading to the term "Stockholm syndrome".

1977 – The Gossamer Condor wins the Kremer prize for human powered flight.

1989 – Singing Revolution: Two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stand on the Vilnius–Tallinn road, holding hands (Baltic Way).

1,645 Australian domestic airline pilots resign after the airlines threaten to fire them and sue them over a dispute.

1990 – Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western "guests" (actually hostages) to try to prevent the Gulf War.

1990 – West Germany and East Germany announce that they will reunite on October 3.

2006 – Natascha Kampusch, who had been abducted at the age of ten, escapes from her captor, after eight years of captivity.

2007 – The skeletal remains of Russia's last royal family members Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia, and his sister Grand Duchess Anastasia are discovered near Yekaterinburg, Russia.

2011 – A magnitude 5.8 (class: moderate) earthquake occurs in Virginia. Damage occurs to monuments and structures in Washington D.C. and the resulted damage is estimated at $200 million–$300 million USD.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is overthrown after the National Transitional Council forces take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during the Libyan Civil War.

Births

1754 – Louis XVI of France; 1785 – Oliver Hazard Perry; 1912 – Gene Kelly; 1917 – Tex Williams:shred:; 1929 – Vera Miles; 1931 – Barbara Eden; 1932 – Mark Russell:keys:; 1946 – Keith Moon:drummer:(The Who); 1947 – Rex Allen, Jr.♪ ♫; 1949 – Shelley Long, Rick Springfield♪ ♫; 1951 – Jimi Jamison♪ ♫(Survivor); 1951 – Queen Noor of Jordan; 1960 – Gary Hoey:shred:; 1961 – Dean DeLeo:shred:(Stone Temple Pilots); 1963 – Kenny Wallace:driving:; 1969 – Jeremy Schaap (son of sportscaster Dick Schapp); 1970 – Jay Mohr, River Phoenix; 1976 – Scott Caan (Hawaii Five-O, son of James Caan); 1978 – Kobe Bryant; 1988 – Jeremy Lin

Deaths

30 BC– Caesarion, Marcus Antonius Antyllus; 1305 – William Wallace; 1723 – Increase Mather; 1819 – Oliver Hazard Perry; 1926 – Rudolph Valentino (fullname (take a deep breath) Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella, whew); 1927 – Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti; 1960 – Oscar Hammerstein II♪ ♫; 1962 – Hoot Gibson; 2002 – Hoyt Wilhelm; 2005 – Brock Peters (To Kill A Mockingbird); 2013 – Richard J. Corman (R.J. Corman Railroad)

You're missing a birthday there...one lumberjim...

August 24

79 – Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash (note: this traditional date has been challenged, and many scholars believe that the event occurred on October 24).

410 – The Visigoths under king Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.

455 – The Vandals, led by king Genseric, begin to plunder Rome. Pope Leo I requests Genseric not destroy the ancient city or murder its citizens. He agrees and the gates of Rome are opened. However, the Vandals loot a great amount of treasure.

1349 – Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.

1456 – The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.

1682 – William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.

1814 – British troops invade Washington, D.C. and during the Burning of Washington, the White House, the Capitol and many other buildings are set ablaze.

1875 – Captain Matthew Webb became first person to swim the English Channel.

1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.

1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).

1949 – The treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) goes into effect.

1963 - Stevie Wonder became the first artist ever to score a US No.1 album and single in the same week. Wonder was at No.1 on the album chart with 'Little Stevie Wonder / The 12 Year Old Genius' and had the No.1 single 'Fingertips part 2'. This was also the first ever live recording to make No.1.

1967 – Led by Abbie Hoffman, the Youth International Party (yippies) temporarily disrupts trading at the New York Stock Exchange by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them.

1975 - Queen started recording 'Bohemian Rhapsody' at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, (the song was recorded over three weeks). Freddie Mercury had mentally prepared the song beforehand and directed the band throughout the sessions. May, Mercury, and Taylor sang their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day, resulting in 180 separate overdubs.

1977 - Singer, songwriter Waylon Jennings was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine. Jennings had recently been named an honorary police chief.

1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.

1983, The fifth wife of Jerry Lee Lewis, Shawn Michelle Stevens was found dead at their Mississippi home of a methadone overdose. They had been married less than three months.

1989 – Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose is banned from baseball for gambling by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti.

1990 - Judas Priest successfully defended themselves against a lawsuit, after two fans attempted suicide while listening to the Stained Class album. Both fans eventually died, one immediately from a shotgun blast, and the other on a second attempt three years later by a methadone overdose. The prosecution claimed that there were subliminal messages in the group’s music that caused the two seventeen year-olds to carry out the suicide pact in 1985.

1995 – Microsoft Windows 95 was released to the public in North America.

1998 – First radio-frequency identification (RFID) human implantation tested in the United Kingdom.

2001 – Air Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean (en route to Lisbon from Toronto) and makes an emergency landing in the Azores.

2006 – The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.

2009 - The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled Michael Jackson's death a homicide caused by a mix of drugs meant to treat insomnia. On February 8, 2010, Dr. Conrad Murray was charged with involuntary manslaughter by prosecutors in Los Angeles. Dr. Murray pleaded not guilty and was released after posting $75,000 bail, but would be found guilty in November, 2011 and was sentenced to four years in a Los Angeles County jail.

Births

1787 – James Weddell (namesake of the Weddell Sea); 1845 – James Calhoun (Custer's bro-in-law, died at The Little Bighorn); 1884 – Earl Derr Biggers (created 'Charlie Chan'); 1902 – Carlo Gambino (mob boss); 1905 – Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup♪ ♫(That's All Right); 1929 – Yasser Arafat; 1934 – Kenny Baker ('R2D2'); 1943 – John Cipollina:shred:(Quicksilver Messenger Service); 1945 – Ken Hensley:shred:(Uriah Heep); 1945 – Vince McMahon; 1947 – Anne Archer, Jim Fox:drummer::keys:(James Gang); 1948 – Jean Michel Jarre:keys:; 1949 – Joe Regalbuto (Murphy Brown); 1951 – Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game); 1952 – Bob Corker; 1955 – Mike Huckabee; 1956 – Gerry Cooney:boxers:; 1957 – Stephen Fry; 1958 – Steve Guttenberg (Police Academy); 1960 – Cal Ripken, Jr.; 1962 – Craig Kilborn; 1963 – John Bush♪ ♫(Anthrax); 1964 – Oteil Burbridge:bass:(Allman Bros); 1965 – Marlee Matlin; 1968 – James Toney:boxers:; 1973 – Dave Chappelle:lol2:; 1988 – Rupert Grint (Harry Potter movies)

Deaths

1967 – Henry J. Kaiser; 1978 – Louis Prima♪ ♫; 1991 – Bernard Castro (invented the convertible couch); 1998 – E. G. Marshall; 2001 – Jane Greer; 2014 – Richard Attenborough

Man, what is it with Germans and the Jews?

Cool. Orson Scott Card. I hear he's a dick, but he's one of my favorite authors.

I never heard it put in those words, but yes. I think he is. So I googled the phrase. In quotes.

Attachment 57673

Is Orson Scott Card a dick?

Result #2:



You can click away when he says goodbye, it's 3 more minutes of black screen and silence.

August 25

1537 – The Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, and the second most senior, is formed.

1543 – The first Europeans, and the first firearms, arrive in Japan.

1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.

1894 – Kitasato Shibasaburō discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet.

1916 – The United States National Park Service is created.

1944 – World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies.

1981 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn.

1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, the second to last planet in the Solar System at the time.

1991 – Linus Torvalds announces the first version of what will become Linux.

1994 - Jimmy Buffett crashed his Grumman G-44 Widgeon seaplane on take-off in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Buffett swam away from the wreckage.

2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space, becoming the first man-made object to do so.

Births

1530 – Ivan the Terrible; 1819 – Allan Pinkerton (Pinkerton National Detective Agency); 1836 – Bret Harte; 1909 – Ruby Keeler, Michael Rennie ('Klaatu' in The Day The Earth Stood Still); 1916 – Van Johnson; 1917 – Mel Ferrer; 1918 – Leonard Bernstein♪ ♫; 1919 – George Wallace:wheelchr:; 1921 – Monty Hall; 1927 – Althea Gibson; 1930 – Sean Connery (woman slapper); 1931 – Regis Philbin; 1933 – Patrick F. McManus; 1933 – Tom Skerritt; 1938 – David Canary (All My Children, Bonanza); 1937 – Virginia Wolff; 1939 – John Badham; 1943 – Harry Manfredini♪ ♫; 1944 – Anthony Heald (the old friend Hannibal Lecter was going to have for dinner at the end of The Silence of the Lambs); 1949 – John Savage (The Deer Hunter), Gene Simmons:bass:(KISS); 1950 – Willy DeVille♪ ♫(Mink DeVille); 1951 – Rob Halford♪ ♫(Judas Priest, Fight); 1954 – Elvis Costello♪ ♫; 1958 – Tim Burton; 1961 – Billy Ray Cyrus♪ ♫; 1962 – Vivian Campbell:shred:; 1964 – Blair Underwood; 1968 – Rachael Ray; 1970 – Jo Dee Messina♪ ♫; 1976 – Alexander Skarsgård ('Tarzan' in The Legend of Tarzan, son of actor Stellen Skarsgård); 1987 – Blake Lively (Gossip Girl)

Deaths

79 – Pliny the Elder; 1819 – James Watt; 1822 – William Herschel; 1867 – Michael Faraday; 1900 – Friedrich Nietzsche; 1908 – Henri Becquerel; 1945 – John Birch (John Birch Society); 1956 – Alfred Kinsey; 1967 – Paul Muni; 1984 – Truman Capote; 1988 – Art Rooney (founded the Pittsburgh Steelers); 2000 – Frederick C. Bock (namesake of Bockscar, the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan), Allen Woody:bass:(Allman Bros); 2001 – Aaliyah♪ ♫; 2009 – Ted Kennedy; 2012 – Neil Armstrong

August 26

Today is Women's Equality Day in the United States.

1346 – Hundred Years' War: The military supremacy of the English longbow over the French combination of crossbow and armoured knights is established at the Battle of Crécy.

1498 – Michelangelo is commissioned to carve the Pietà.

1768 – Captain James Cook sets sail from England on board HMS Endeavour.

1791 – John Fitch is granted a United States patent for the steamboat.

1883 – The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa begins its final, paroxysmal, stage.

1920 – The 19th amendment to United States Constitution takes effect, giving women the right to vote.

1970 – The then-new feminist movement, led by Betty Friedan, leads a nationwide Women's Strike for Equality.

1980 – John Birges plants a bomb at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada, United States. The FBI inadvertently detonated the bomb during disarming.

1987 - Sonny Bono, who once said that he never voted until he was 53, announced that he was running for mayor of Palm Springs, California. He won the election in 1988 and went on to win a seat in Congress in 1996.

1999 – Russia begins the Second Chechen War in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade.

2004 - Singer Laura Branigan died of a brain aneurysm. She had had a 1982 US No.2 & UK No.6 single with ‘Gloria’ and a 1984 US No.4 & UK No.5 with ‘Self Control’. She had also played Janis Joplin in the US musical Love, Janis.

2015 – Two U.S. journalists are shot and killed by a disgruntled former coworker while conducting a live report in Moneta, Virginia.

Births

1676 – Robert Walpole; 1740 – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier; 1743 – Antoine Lavoisier; 1845 – Mary Ann Nichols (victim of Jack The Ripper); 1898 – Peggy Guggenheim; 1909 – Jim Davis ('Jock Ewing' on Dallas); 1910 – Mother Teresa; 1935 – Geraldine Ferraro; 1940 – Don LaFontaine (voice-over artist); 1944 – Maureen Tucker:drummer:(The Velvet Underground); 1945 – Tom Ridge (1st Secretary of Homeland Security); 1949 – Leon Redbone♪ ♫; 1952 – Michael Jeter; 1952 – Will Shortz (crossword puzzle creator); 1960 – Branford Marsalis♪ ♫; 1966 – Shirley Manson♪ ♫(Garbage); 1970 – Melissa McCarthy (Mike & Molly); 1980 – Macaulay Culkin, Chris Pine; 1985 – Brian Kelley♪ ♫(Florida-Georgia Line)

Deaths

1930 – Lon Chaney; 1974 – Charles Lindbergh; 1977 – H. A. Rey (created Curious George); 1978 – Charles Boyer; 1980 – Tex Avery (created the characters of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Droopy, Screwy Squirrel, and developed Porky Pig, & Chilly Willy); 1986 – Ted Knight; 2004 – Laura Branigan (Gloria); 2009 – Dominick Dunne

August 27

1776 – Battle of Long Island: In what is now Brooklyn, New York, British forces under General William Howe defeat Americans under General George Washington.

1832 – Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.

1859 – Edwin Drake successfully drilled for oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, resulting in the Pennsylvania oil rush, the first oil boom in the United States.

1881 – The Georgia hurricane makes landfall near Savannah, Georgia, resulting in an estimated 700 deaths.

1883 – Eruption of Krakatoa: Four enormous explosions destroy the island of Krakatoa and cause years of climate change.

1893 – The Sea Islands hurricane strikes the United States near Savannah, Georgia, killing an estimated 1,000-2,000 people.

1896 – Anglo-Zanzibar War: The shortest war in world history (09:00 to 09:45), between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar.

1918 – Mexican Revolution: Battle of Ambos Nogales: U.S. Army forces skirmish against Mexican Carrancistas and their German advisors on the Mexican-American border in Arizona, in the only battle of World War I fought on American soil.

1939 – First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet aircraft.

1942 – First day of the Sarny Massacre.

1962 – The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA.

1967 - British music entrepreneur and the manager of The Beatles, Brian Epstein was found dead, locked in a bedroom at his London home. A coroner's inquest concluded that Epstein died from an overdose of the sleeping pill Carbitrol.

1979 – A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb kills British retired admiral Lord Mountbatten and three others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Shortly after, 18 British Army soldiers are killed in an ambush near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland.

1980 – A massive bomb planted by extortionist John Birges explodes at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada after a failed disarming attempt by the FBI. Although the hotel is damaged, no one is injured.

1990 - Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed when the helicopter he was flying in, hit a man-made ski slope while trying to navigate through dense fog. Vaughan had played a show at Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, Wisconsin with Robert Cray & His Memphis Horns, and Eric Clapton. Vaughan was informed by a member of Clapton's crew that three seats were open on a helicopter returning to Chicago with Clapton's crew, it turned out there was only one seat left; Vaughan requested it from his older brother, Jimmie, who obliged. Three members of Eric Clapton's entourage were also killed.

1992 - John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to The Beatles song 'A Day In The Life' from Sgt. Pepper sold in an auction at Sotheby's London for $100,000 (£56,600). The lyrics were put up for sale again in March 2006 by Bonhams in New York. Sealed bids were opened on 7 March 2006 and offers started at about $2 million. The lyric sheet was auctioned again by Sotheby's in June 2010 when it was purchased by an anonymous American buyer who paid $1,200,000 (£810,000).

2003 – Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) distant.

2006 – Comair Flight 5191 crashes on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky bound for Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Of the passengers and crew, 49 of 50 are confirmed dead.

2011 – Hurricane Irene strikes the United States east coast, killing 47 and causing an estimated $15.6 billion in damage.

Births

1809 – Hannibal Hamlin (15th VPOTUS); 1865 – Charles G. Dawes (30th VPOTUS); 1874 – Carl Bosch (Haber–Bosch process, "On average, one-half of the nitrogen in a human body comes from synthetically fixed sources, the product of a Haber–Bosch plant."); 1877 – Charles Rolls (yeah, that Rolls); 1890 – Man Ray:artist:; 1896 – Léon Theremin (invented the Theremin); 1899 – C. S. Forester (wrote The African Queen, Horatio Hornblower series of novels); 1906 – Ed Gein; 1908 – Lyndon B. Johnson (36th POTUS); 1916 – Martha Raye; 1929 – Ira Levin♪ ♫; 1939 – William Least Heat-Moon; 1942 – Daryl Dragon:keys:(the captain from Capt. & Tennille); 1943 – Tuesday Weld; 1947 – Barbara Bach; 1949 – Jeff Cook:shred::violin:(Alabama); 1950 – Charles Fleischer (voiced Roger Rabbit); 1952 – Paul 'PeeWee Herman' Reubens:jagoff:; 1953 – Alex Lifeson:shred:(Rush), Peter Stormare ('Slippery Pete' from Seinfeld; The Big Lebowski, one of my favorite villain actors); 1956 – Glen Matlock:bass:(Sex Pistols); 1957 – Bernhard Langer; 1959 – Downtown Julie Brown (former MTV vj); 1961 – Tom Ford; 1969 – Chandra Wilson (Grey's Anatomy); 1970 – Tony Kanal:bass:(No Doubt); 1973 – Cory Bowles (Trailer Park Boys); 1976 – Sarah Chalke (Scrubs); 1979 – Aaron 'Bitch!' Paul (Breaking Bad); 1988 – Alexa PenaVega:love:

Deaths

1576 – Titian:artist:; 1963 – W. E. B. Du Bois; 1964 – Gracie Allen; 1967 – Brian Epstein (managed The Beatles); 1975 – Haile Selassie; 1979 – Louis Mountbatten; 1980 – Douglas Kenney (co-founded National Lampoon); 1990 – Stevie Ray Vaughan:devil:; 1996 – Greg Morris (Mission: Impossible)

August 28

There are 125 days remaining in 2016.

There are 118 days til Christmas.

1609 – Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.

1789 – William Herschel discovers a new moon of Saturn: Enceladus.

1830 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's new steam locomotive, Tom Thumb, races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam's role in US railroads. The horse won the race.

1845 – The first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.

1859 – A massive solar storm began, causing a coronal mass ejection to strike the Earth's magnetosphere that generated aurorae that were visible in the middle latitudes. Known as the Carrington Event.

1862 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Second Manassas. The battle ends on August 30.

1898 – Caleb Bradham invents the carbonated soft drink that will later be called "Pepsi-Cola".:yum:

1937 – Toyota Motors, now the world's largest automobile manufacturer, was spun off from Toyota Industries as an independent company.

1955 – Black teenager Emmett Till is brutally murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent Civil Rights Movement.

1957 – U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond begins a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on the Civil Rights Act of 1957; he stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.

1963 – March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech.

1963 – Emily Hoffert and Janice Wylie are murdered in their Manhattan apartment, prompting the events that would lead to the passing of the Miranda Rights.

1964 – The Philadelphia race riot begins.

1968 – Riots in Chicago, Illinois, during the Democratic National Convention.

1988 – Ramstein air show disaster: Three aircraft of the Frecce Tricolori demonstration team collide and the wreckage falls into the crowd. Seventy-five are killed and 346 seriously injured.

1990 – Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province.

1993 – The Galileo spacecraft discovers a moon, later named Dactyl, around 243 Ida, the first known asteroid moon.

Births

1728 – John Stark (no relation to Ned, Arya, Sansa, Rob, Bran, or Rickon); 1749 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust); 1774 – Elizabeth Ann Seton; 1831 – Lucy Webb Hayes (20th FLOTUS); 1899 – Charles Boyer; 1921 – Nancy Kulp ('Miss Hathaway' on The Beverly Hillbillies); 1925 – Billy Grammer:shred:, Donald O'Connor; 1929 – Roxie Roker(The Jeffersons, Lenny Kravitz's mother); 1930 – Ben Gazzara; 1942 – Sterling Morrison:shred::bass:(The Velvet Underground); 1943 – David Soul; 1952 – Rita Dove; 1956 – Luis Guzmán; 1957 – Rick Rossovich (Top Gun); 1957 – Ai Weiwei:artist:; 1958 – Scott Hamilton; 1961 – Jennifer Coolidge:devil:('Stifler's Mom' in American Pie movie series, Two Broke Girls); 1965 – Amanda Tapping (Stargate SG-1), Shania Twain♪ ♫; 1969 – Jack Black♪ ♫; 1969 – Jason Priestley; 1982 – LeAnn Rimes♪ ♫; 1986 – Armie Hammer ('Illya Kuryakin' in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 2013)

Deaths

1784 – Junípero Serra; 1903 – Frederick Law Olmsted; 1987 – John Huston; 1988 – Max Shulman (The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis); 2007 – Hilly Kristal (founded CBGB); 2013 – Edmund B. Fitzgerald (namesake of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald)

August 29

708 – Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first time (Traditional Japanese date: August 10, 708).

1758 – The first American Indian reservation is established, at Indian Mills, New Jersey.

1786 – Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high debt and tax burdens.

1831 – Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction.

1842 – Signing of the Treaty of Nanking ends the First Opium War.

1869 – The Mount Washington Cog Railway opens, making it the world's first mountain-climbing rack railway. It is still in operation.

1885 – Gottlieb Daimler patents the world's first internal combustion motorcycle, the Reitwagen.

1898 – The Goodyear tire company is founded.

1907 – The Quebec Bridge collapses during construction, killing 75 workers. The still-under-construction bridge would collapse again in 1916, the two disasters claiming a total of 88 lives.

1911 – Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans (the last "wild" Indian), emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California.

1915 – US Navy salvage divers raise F-4, the first U.S. submarine sunk in an accident.

1922 – The first radio advertisement is broadcast on WEAF-AM in New York City.

1949 – Soviet atomic bomb project: The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.

1950 – Korean War: British troops arrive in Korea to bolster the US presence there.

1958 – United States Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

1966 – The Beatles perform their last concert before paying fans at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

1977 - Three people were arrested in Memphis after trying to steal Elvis Presley's body. As a result, his remains would be later moved to Graceland.

1992 - U2 became only the second act ever (Billy Joel being the first) to play Yankee Stadium in New York City, during their sold out Zoo TV tour.

2005 – Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing an estimated 1,836 people and causing over $108 billion in damage.

77-year-old Fats Domino was rescued from the flooding in New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina. He had earlier told his agent that he planned to remain in his home despite the order to evacuate.

2007 – 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident: Six US cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads are flown without proper authorization from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base.:eek:

2009 - The Los Angeles coroner confirmed Michael Jackson's death was homicide, primarily caused by the powerful anaesthetic Propofol. The singer suffered a cardiac arrest at his Los Angeles home in June, aged 50. The report said Propofol and the sedative Lorazepam were the "primary drugs responsible for Jackson's death", but four other drugs were also found.

Births

1632 – John Locke (not the one on Lost, this one was from a much bigger island); 1809 – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.; 1876 – Charles F. Kettering (founded Delco Electronics); 1915 – Ingrid Bergman; 1917 – Isabel Sanford ('Weezy' on The Jeffersons); 1920 – Charlie 'Yardbird' Parker♪ ♫; 1922 – Richard Blackwell; 1923 – Richard Attenborough; 1924 – Dinah Washington♪ ♫:keys:; 1927 – Jimmy C. Newman♪ ♫; 1936 – John McCain; 1939 – Joel Schumacher; 1940 – James Brady, Gary Gabelich:driving:(driver of the rocket car The Blue Flame); 1941 – Robin Leach; 1945 – Harry S. Morgan (porn actor, director, producer), Chris Copping:keys::bass:(Procol Harum); 1958 – Michael Jackson♪ ♫; 1959 – Rebecca De Mornay; 1959 – Chris Hadfield (Canuck astronaut); 1968 – Meshell Ndegeocello♪ ♫; 1971 – Carla Gugino

Deaths

1533 – Atahualpa; 1769 – Edmond Hoyle ("According To Hoyle"); 1877 – Brigham Young; 1930 – William Archibald Spooner (namesake of 'Spoonerism'); 1931 – David T. Abercrombie (co-founded Abercrombie & Fitch); 1946 – Adolphus Busch III; 1968 – Ulysses S. Grant III; 1971 – Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. (Leopold & Loeb); 1976 - Jimmy Reed♪ ♫; 1982 – Ingrid Bergman; 1987 – Archie Campbell (Hee Haw), Lee Marvin; 2007 – Richard Jewell (falsely accused Olympic Park Bombing suspect); 2011 – David "Honeyboy" Edwards♪ ♫; 2013 – Bruce C. Murray (co-founded The Planetary Society); 2015 – Wayne Dyer

August 30

1791 – HMS Pandora sinks after having run aground on the outer Great Barrier Reef the previous day.

1813 – Creek War: Fort Mims massacre: Creek of the "Red Sticks" faction kill over 500 settlers (including over 250 armed militia) in Fort Mims, north of Mobile, Alabama.

1835 – Melbourne, Australia is founded.

1836 – The city of Houston, Texas is founded by brothers Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen.

1918 – Fanni Kaplan shoots and seriously injures Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. This, along with the assassination of Bolshevik senior official Moisei Uritsky days earlier, prompts the decree for Red Terror.

1945 – Hong Kong is liberated from Japan by British Armed Forces.

1949 - Hank Williams went into Herzog Studio in Cincinnati to record 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry'. Williams wrote the song originally intending that the words be spoken, rather than sung. The song about loneliness was largely inspired by his troubled relationship with wife Audrey Sheppard.

1962 – Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since World War II and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war.

1963 – The Moscow–Washington hotline between the leaders of the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union goes into operation.

1967 – Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

1984 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.

1992 – The 11-day Ruby Ridge standoff ends with Randy Weaver surrendering to federal authorities.

1995 - Carly Simon and James Taylor performed live together in front of 10,000 fans on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. It was the first time they appeared live on the same stage since 1979.

2003 – While being towed across the Barents Sea, the de-commissioned Russian submarine K-159 sinks, taking nine of her crew and 800 kg of spent nuclear fuel with her.

Births

1797 – Mary Shelley; 1896 – Raymond Massey; 1906 – Joan Blondell; 1908 – Fred MacMurray; 1912 – Nancy Wake (genuine badass); 1918 – Ted Williams; 1919 – Kitty Wells♪ ♫; 1926 – Daryl Gates; 1927 – Bill Daily (I Dream Of Jeannie); 1930 – Warren Buffett ($$$); 1935 – John Phillips♪ ♫(The Mamas & The Papas); 1937 – Bruce McLaren:driving:; 1941 – Ben Jones ('Cooter' on The Dukes of Hazzard); 1943 – Robert Crumb (created Fritz The Cat); 1948 – Lewis Black:bitching::lol2:; 1950 – Antony Gormley (sculptor Angel of the North); 1951 – Timothy Bottoms; 1954 – David Paymer; 1956 – Frank Conniff (MST3K); 1963 – Michael Chiklis (The Shield, Fantastic Four), Paul Oakenfold♪ ♫(dj); 1972 – Cameron Diaz; 1973 – Lisa Ling; 1982 – Andy Roddick

Deaths

1879 – John Bell Hood; 1938 – Max Factor, Sr.; 1961 – Charles Coburn; 1968 – William Talman ('District Attorney Burger' on Perry Mason); 1979 – Jean Seberg; 1993 – Richard Jordan; 1995 – Sterling Morrison:shred:(The Velvet Underground); 2003 – Charles Bronson; 2006 – Glenn Ford; 2015 – Wes Craven

August 31

Today is National Trail Mix Day in the United States.

1422 – King Henry V of England dies of dysentery while in France. His son, Henry VI becomes King of England at the age of 9 months.

1803 – Meriwether Lewis and William Clark start their expedition to the west by leaving Pittsburgh at 11 in the morning.

1864 – During the American Civil War, Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta.

1888 – Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper's confirmed victims.

1895 – German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his Navigable Balloon.

1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.

1920 – The first radio news program is broadcast by 8MK in Detroit.

1943 – USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.

1968 – Garfield Sobers became the first batsman ever to hit six sixes in a single over of six consecutive balls in first-class cricket. It was a truly wicked bit of googly.

1990, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Wonder sang 'Amazing Grace' at a memorial service held for guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan who had been killed in a helicopter crash 4 days earlier.

1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris.

2005 – The 2005 Al-Aaimmah bridge stampede in Baghdad kills 1,199 people.

2006 – Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream, stolen on August 22, 2004, is recovered in a raid by Norwegian police.

Births

12 – Caligula; 1870 – Maria Montessori (Montessori schools); 1897 – Fredric March; 1903 – Arthur Godfrey; 1905 – Sanford Meisner; 1908 – William Saroyan; 1914 – Richard Basehart; 1920 – G. D. Spradlin; 1924 – Buddy Hackett; 1928 – James Coburn; 1931 – Noble Willingham; 1937 – Bobby Parker:shred:; 1939 – Jerry Allison:drummer:(Buddy Holly & The Crickets); 1942 – Isao Aoki; 1945 – Van Morrison♪ ♫:devil:, Bob Welch:shred:(Fleetwood Mac); 1948 - Rudolf Schenker:shred:(The Scorpions); 1949 – Richard Gere; 1962 – Dee Bradley Baker (voice of 'Klaus', the goldfish, on American Dad); 1970 – Debbie Gibson; 1972 – Chris Tucker ("You got knocked the fuck out, man!")

Deaths

1422 – Henry V of England:turd:; 1867 – Charles Baudelaire; 1888 – Mary Ann Nichols (Jack The Ripper's first confirmed victim); 1948 – Billy Laughlin ('Froggy' on Our Gang); 1969 – Rocky Marciano:boxers:; 1973 – John Ford; 1979 – Sally Rand; 1997 – Dodi Fayed, Diana, Princess of Wales; 2002 – Lionel Hampton:keys:; 2013 – David Frost; 2014 – Jimi Jamison♪ ♫(Survivor)

Let's try this one more goddamn time, nothing like killing a fucking hour and a half twice.

September 1

Today is Random Acts of Kindness Day.

Today is Wattle Day in Australia, marking the first day of Spring.

717 – Siege of Constantinople: The Muslim armada with 1,800 ships, is defeated by the Byzantine navy through the use of Greek fire.

1532 – Lady Anne Boleyn is made Marquess of Pembroke by her fiancé, King Henry VIII of England.

1804 – Juno, one of the largest asteroids in the Main Belt, is discovered by the German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding.

1836 – Narcissa Whitman, one of the first English-speaking white women to settle west of the Rocky Mountains, arrives at Walla Walla, Washington.

1878 – Emma Nutt becomes the world's first female telephone operator when she is recruited by Alexander Graham Bell to the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company.

1894 – Over 400 people die in the Great Hinckley Fire, a forest fire in Hinckley, Minnesota.

1914 – The last known passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, dies in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo.

1952 – The Old Man and the Sea, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Ernest Hemingway, is first published.

1969 – A coup in Libya brings Muammar Gaddafi to power.

1972 – In Reykjavík, Iceland, American Bobby Fischer beats Russian Boris Spassky to become the world chess champion.

1974 – The SR-71 Blackbird sets (and holds) the record for flying from New York to London in the time of 1 hour, 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds at a speed of 1,435.587 miles per hour (2,310.353 km/h).

1983 – Cold War: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace. All 269 on board die, including Congressman Lawrence McDonald.

1985 – A joint American–French expedition locates the wreckage of the RMS Titanic.

2004 – The Beslan school hostage crisis commences when armed terrorists take children and adults hostage in Beslan in North Ossetia, Russia.

Births

1653 – Johann Pachelbel; 1854 – Engelbert Humperdinck; 1866 – James J. Corbett; 1875 – Edgar Rice Burroughs; 1920 – Richard Farnsworth; 1922 – Yvonne De Carlol; 1923 – Rocky Marciano; 1928 – George Maharis; 1931 – Boxcar Willie; 1933 – Ann Richards; 1933 – Conway Twitty; 1937 – Al Geiberger; 1938 – Alan Dershowitz; 1939 – Lily Tomlin; 1946 – Barry Gibb; 1950 – Phil McGraw; 1970 – Padma Lakshmi

Deaths

1557 – Jacques Cartier; 1838 – William Clark; 1989 – A. Bartlett Giamatti; 2005 – R. L. Burnside; 2008 – Jerry Reed; 2012 – Hal David

[Thanks for always posting these.]

Wattle day?

They needed this.
Attachment 57769

That second effort was somewhat condensed from the first one.

And you're welcome.

Additions and corrections are always welcome. And encouraged.

September 2

Today is Victory Over Japan Day (V-J Day) in the United States, marking the end of World War II.

1666 – The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings, including St Paul's Cathedral, and the homes of 70,000 of the city's 80,000 citizens.

1752 – Great Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe.

1789 – The United States Department of the Treasury is founded.

1806 – A massive landslide destroys the town of Goldau, Switzerland, killing 457.

1859 – A solar super storm affects electrical telegraph service.

1864 – American Civil War: Union forces enter Atlanta, a day after the Confederate defenders flee the city, ending the Atlanta Campaign.

1870 – Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Sedan: Prussian forces take Napoleon III of France and 100,000 of his soldiers prisoner.

1901 – Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair.

1912 – Arthur Rose Eldred is awarded the first Eagle Scout award of the Boy Scouts of America.

1945 – World War II: Combat ends in the Pacific Theater: The Japanese Instrument of Surrender is signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and accepted aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

1963 – CBS Evening News becomes U.S. network television's first half-hour weeknight news broadcast, when the show is lengthened from 15 to 30 minutes.

1984 – Seven people are shot and killed and 12 wounded in the Milperra massacre, a shootout between the rival motorcycle gangs Bandidos and Comancheros in Sydney, Australia.

1987 – In Moscow, the trial begins for 19-year-old pilot Mathias Rust, who flew his Cessna airplane into Red Square in May.

Births

1661 – Georg Böhm:keys:; 1675 – William Somervile; 1850 – Albert Spalding (co-founded the Spalding Sporting Goods Company); 1901 – Adolph Rupp (coached the University of Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team for 42 years, namesake of Rupp Arena); 1911 – William F. Harrah (founded Caesars Entertainment Corporation); 1914 – Tom Glazer♪ ♫; 1915 – Meinhardt Raabe (Munchkin); 1917 – Cleveland Amory; 1925 – Hugo Montenegro♪ ♫; 1929 – Hal Ashby; 1934 – Grady Nutt (minister & humorist, Hee Haw); 1935 – D. Wayne Lukas (horse trainer); 1937 – Peter Ueberroth; 1938 – Mary Jo Catlett; 1946 – Billy Preston♪ ♫; 1946 – Dan White (Harvey Milk's & George Moscone's assassin); 1948 – Terry Bradshaw, Christa McAuliffe; 1951 – Michael Gray ('Billy Batson' on Shazam!), Mark Harmon ('Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs' on NCIS); 1952 – Jimmy Connors; 1957 – Steve Porcaro:keys:(Toto); 1964 – Keanu Reeves; 1965 – Lennox Lewis:boxers:; 1966 – Salma Hayek

Deaths

1910 – Henri Rousseau:artist:; 1964 – Alvin C. York; 1969 – Ho Chi Minh; 1973 – J. R. R. Tolkien; 1978 – Fred G. Meyer (founded Fred Meyer); 2005 – Bob Denver (Gilligan's Island)

Now I am laughing as I try to pronounce "bandidos" and "comancheros" with an Australian accent.

Awesome! It didn't even occur to me to try that.

Cawmuncheeros

It really doesn't do to rush into these things, you know. ;)