This Day in History

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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(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(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; 1977 – Groucho Marx; 1980 – Otto Frank (Anne's papa); 2008 – LeRoi Moore♪ ♫(DMB); 2009 – Don Hewitt (created 60 Minutes)

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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; 1935 – Ron Paul; 1942 – Isaac Hayes♪ ♫; 1946 – Connie Chung; 1947 – James Pankow♪ ♫(Chicago), Ray Wise; 1948 – Robert Plant♪ ♫(Led Zeppelin); 1949 – Phil Lynott(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(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

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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; 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(The Clash); 1954 – Steve 'Machine Gun' Smith(Journey); 1956 – Kim Cattrall; 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; 1981 – Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss; 1986 – Usain Bolt, Kacey Musgraves♪ ♫; 1989 – Hayden Panettiere; 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♪ ♫