17 Aug History: This Date

CURRENT UPDATES: TODAY–2 TO TODAY+2

<< Aug 16| HISTORY “4” “2”DAY |Aug 18 >>
Events, deaths, births, of AUG 17
[For Aug 17 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Aug 27 — 1700s: Aug 28 — 1800s: Aug 29 — 1900~2099: Aug 30]

ARCHIVE ALL FOR 020817 CURRENT DAY in HISTORY, ART, etc. Search this site or the web

IF SOMETHING'S WRONG HERE, TRY MIRROR 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, or 19

On an 17 August:

1999 Chechnya war: Russian Colonel-General Viktor Kazantsev takes over Dagestan operation from Colonel-General Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov, formally marking the transition of command from the Interior Ministry to the Defense Ministry. — http://www.cdi.org/issues/Europe/aug.html

1998 Clinton admits "inappropriate relationship"
      Contrary to his testimony in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case, President Bill Clinton acknowledges to prosecutors from the office of Independent Counsel Ken Starr that he had had an extramarital affair with ex-White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In four hours of closed-door testimony, conducted in the Map Room of the White House, Clinton speaks live via closed-circuit television to a grand jury in a nearby federal courthouse. He is the first sitting president to ever testify before a grand jury investigating his conduct.
      That evening, President Clinton gives a four-minute televised address to the nation in which he admits he had an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky. In the brief speech, which is filled of legalisms, the word "sex" is absent and the word "regret" is only used in reference to his admission that he misled the public and his family.
      In November of 1995, Clinton began his affair with Miss Lewinsky, 21, an unpaid intern. Over the next year and a half, the president and Lewinsky had nearly a dozen sexual encounters in the White House — eight while she worked there and two later.
      In April of 1996, Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. That summer, she first confided in Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp about her sexual relationship with the president. In 1997, with that relationship ended, Tripp began to secretly record conversations with Lewinsky in which she gave details about the affair. In December, Lewinsky was subpoenaed by lawyers for Paula Jones, who was suing the president on sexual harassment charges.
      On 07 January 1998, allegedly under the recommendation of the president, Lewinsky filed an affidavit in which she denied ever having a sexual relationship with President Clinton. Just five days later, Tripp contacted the office of Whitewater Independent Counsel Ken Starr to talk about Lewinsky and the tapes she made of their conversations. Tripp, wired by FBI agents working with Starr, met with Lewinsky again on 13 January 1998, and, on 16 January, Lewinsky was taken by the FBI agents and US attorneys to a hotel room, where she was questioned and offered immunity if she cooperated with the prosecution.
      A few days later, the story broke, and Clinton publicly denied the allegations, saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman... Ms. Lewinsky." In late July, lawyers for Lewinsky and Starr worked out a full immunity agreement covering both Lewinsky and her parents, whom Starr had all threatened with prosecution. On 06 August, Lewinsky appeared before the grand jury to begin her testimony, and on 17 August President Clinton testifies.
      Less than a month later, on 09 September, Kenneth Starr would submit his report and eighteen boxes of supporting documents to the House of Representatives. Released to the public two days later, the Starr Report outlined a case for impeaching Clinton on eleven grounds, including perjury, obstruction of justice, witness-tampering, and abuse of power, and also provided explicit details of the sexual relationship between the president and Ms. Lewinsky.
      On 08 October, the House authorized a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry, and on 11 December, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment. On 16 December, the eve of the House impeachment debate, US and British forces attacked Iraq in retaliation for its failure to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors. During the two days of coordinated air strikes, Iraqi officials reported that at least twenty-five people were killed in Baghdad alone.
      On 19 December, after thirteen-and-a-half hours of debate, the House approved two articles of impeachment, charging President Clinton with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton, the second president in US history to be impeached, vowed to finish his term.
      On 07 January 1999, in a congressional procedure not seen since the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, the trial of President Clinton got underway in the Senate. As instructed in Article 1 of the US Constitution, Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist was sworn in to preside and the senators were sworn in as jurors. Five weeks later, on 12 February 1999, the Senate voted on whether or not to remove Clinton from office. Clinton was acquitted on both articles of impeachment. The prosecution needed a two-third majority to convict, but failed to achieve even a bare majority. Rejecting the first charge of perjury, forty-five Democrats and ten Republicans voted "not guilty," and on the charge of obstruction of justice, the Senate was split 50-50. After the trial concluded, President Clinton said he was "profoundly sorry" for the burden he imposed on Congress and the people of the US.

1997 Experion shuts down its credit report web site after a security flaw enables people to look up others' credit history, instead of just their own as intended.

1996 Woman to try to restore democracy in Liberia.
At the close of a summit meeting of West African leaders in the capital of Nigeria, Ruth Sando Perry, a former senator, is appointed president of the Liberian Council of State, Africa's first female head of state. The summit meeting was called with the intention of bringing an end to nearly seven years of civil war in Liberia, and was attended by the leaders of the various armed factions in Liberia. Perry is appointed to oversee a return to democracy in Liberia, to culminate with the election of a new president once the factions have been disarmed and demobilized. A 10'000-member West African peacekeeping force will go to the war-torn country to enforce the agreement.
Liberia, founded by former African-American slaves in 1847, is Africa's oldest republic. The African Americans, who were aided by the American Colonization Society, formed a government independent of the native peoples in the area, creating tensions that continued into the late twentieth century. In 1980, native Liberian Samuel K. Doe overthrew American-descended President William Tolbert, and ruled until he was deposed by American-descended Charles Taylor in 1990. Factional opposition to Taylor's rule led to the outbreak of full-scale civil war in Liberia the same year.

1994 Carpal tunnel syndrome warning
Compaq announces it will put labels on its keyboards warning users of the dangers posed by repetitive motions. Although Compaq says that the labels are not an admission that keyboards cause injuries, the announcement comes after thousands of lawsuits have been filed against computer companies by users suffering from repetitive motion syndrome. Earlier in the year, Compaq had won a jury verdict in a case attempting to link keyboards with wrist injuries

1994 IBM announces downloadable software. Computer users will be able to order and receive software via computer networks. IBM says that by eliminating floppy disks, storage, and shipping, the new system could greatly decrease the cost of software. IBM also says that it is working on other innovative software delivery methods through satellites and online services.

1993 $6 million advance for Powell autobio
Random house agrees to pay General Colin Powell an advance of about $6 million for the rights to his autobiography, My American Journey. The deal followed fierce bidding wars between several major publishers. Powell was born to Jamaican immigrants, grew up in New York City, distinguished himself in the military, and served as an important presidential adviser until his retirement in September 1993. His book became an immediate bestseller.
Retired Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf reportedly obtained $5 million from Bantam Books to write his autobiography, It Doesn't Take a Hero, which sold more than 1 million hardcover copies. Powell's book, however, became the fastest-selling book in Random House history. Before the book even hit bookstores, Random House boosted its initial print run from 500'000 to 1.25 million.

1989 US trade deficit smaller but still deficit. The US Commerce Department announces that the nation's trade deficit has been $8.7 billion during the month of June, its lowest monthly figure since 1984.
1989 El presidente Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte remodela su gabinete ministerial con vistas a las elecciones del 14 de diciembre en Chile.
1987 Dow Jones Industrial Avg closes above 2700 for 1st time (2700.57)
1985 Rajiv Gandhi announces Punjab state elections in India

1985 Hormel strike ^top^
Though the Hormel Company had been reeling in record profits, management decided to slash wages and benefits, prompting workers at the Austin, Minnesota, plant to call a strike on this day in 1985. The ensuing walkout lasted twenty-five weeks, during which time the local union squabbled with the national leaders, and the Minnesota State Police and National Guard were called in to keep the peace. Hormel, until then best-known as the maker of Spam, broke the strike by calling in replacement workers.

1982 South Bend, Ind jury acquits self-avowed racist Joseph Paul Franklin
1978 The first successful transatlantic balloon flight ends as Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman land their Double Eagle Two outside Paris.

1978 First balloon crossing of Atlantic Ocean.      ^top^
      The Double Eagle II completes the first transatlantic balloon flight when it lands in a barley field near Paris, 137 hours after lifting off from Preque Isle, Maine. The helium-filled balloon was piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman and flew 5203 km in six days.
      Human flight first became a reality in the early 1780s with the successful development of the hot-air balloon by French papermaking brothers Jacques Étienne and Joseph Michel Montgolfier. Soon balloons were being filled with lighter-than-air gas, such as helium or hydrogen, to provide buoyancy. An early achievement of ballooning came in 1785 when Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries from the US became the first to cross the English Channel by air. In the 18th and 19th centuries, balloons were used more for military surveillance and scientific study than for transport or sport. As a mode of air travel, the balloon was supplanted by the self-propelled dirigible — a motorized balloon — in the late 19th century. In the early 20th century, however, interest in sport ballooning began to grow, and an international trophy was offered annually for long-distance flights. Belgian balloonists dominated these early competitions.
      After World War II, new technology made ballooning safer and more affordable, and by the 1960s the sport enjoyed widespread popularity. The transatlantic flight, first accomplished by aircraft and dirigible in 1919, remained an elusive goal of elite balloonists. From 1859 until the flight of the Double Eagle II in 1978, there were 17 unsuccessful transatlantic balloon flights, resulting in the deaths of at least seven balloonists. In September 1977, Ben Abruzzo and Maxie Anderson made their first attempt in the Double Eagle I but were blown off course and forced to ditch off Iceland after traveling 4747 km in 66 hours.
      Abruzzo took several months to recover from frostbite suffered during the ordeal, but by 1978 he and Anderson were ready to make the attempt again. They added Larry Newman as a third pilot, and on 11 September 1978, the Double Eagle II lifted off from Preque Isle, Maine. The 11-story, helium-filled balloon made good progress during the first four days, and the three pilots survived on hot dogs and canned sardines. The only real trouble of the trip occurred on 16 August, when atmospheric conditions forced the Double Eagle II to drop from 6000 m to a dangerous 1200 m. They jettisoned ballast material and soon rose to a safe height again. That night, they reached the coast of Ireland and on 17 August flew across England en route to their destination of Le Bourget field in Paris, site of Charles Lindbergh's landing after flying solo in a plane across the Atlantic in 1927. Over southern England, their wives flew close enough to the balloon in a private plane to blow kisses at their husbands. Blown slightly off course toward the end of the journey, they touched down just before dusk on 17 August near the hamlet of Miserey, about 80 km west of Paris.
      Their 137-hour flight set new endurance and distance records. The US balloonists were greeted by family members and jubilant French spectators who followed their balloon by car. That night, Larry Newman, who at 31 was the youngest of the three pilots, was allowed to sleep with his wife in the same bed where Charles Lindbergh slept after his historic transatlantic flight five decades before.
      In 1981, Ben Abruzzo, Larry Newman, Ron Clark, and Rocky Aoki of Japan flew from Nagashimi, Japan, to Mendocino National Forest in California in the first transpacific flight. Joe Kittinger of the US made a solo transatlantic balloon flight in 1984. In 1995, Steve Fosset of the US accomplished a solo transpacific flight. One of the last frontiers of ballooning was conquered in 1999, when Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland and Englishman Brian Jones completed the first nonstop trip around the world in a hybrid helium and hot-air balloon. They flew from the Swiss Alps, circumnavigated the globe, and landed in Egypt, having traveled more than 46'000 km in 20 days.
     On this same date in 2001, Chicago businessman Steve Fossett, 57, abandons his 5th attempt to circle the globe solo in a balloon. Faced with bad weather he lands in Espantoso, about 80 km from Bage, in southern Brazil, a record 12 days and 13 hours after leaving Australia on 4 August, 19'727 km back (solo balloon flight exceeded in distance only by his own 22'894 km record, on his 3rd try, in 1998).

1973 Vietnam: US troops to withdraw from Thailand ^top^
The United States and Thailand agree to begin negotiations on the reduction of the 49'000 American soldiers in Thailand. Thailand had been a close ally of the United States and had provided both military bases and combat troops to assist the United States and South Vietnam in the war against the Communists. Responding to President Lyndon Johnson's call for "Free World military forces" to come to the aid of South Vietnam, Thailand sent combat troops, which by 1969 totaled nearly 12'000. The last Thai troops were withdrawn from Vietnam in April 1972. In addition to providing troops, Thailand also provided bases for the US Air Force, which included four tactical fighter wings. In addition, strategic bombing missions by B-52s over both North and South Vietnam were flown from US bases in Thailand. With the signing of the Paris Peace Accords and the Congressional restrictions against further bombing, these bases were no longer needed.

1973 Idi Amin expels Asians. ^top^
Idi Amin orders the expulsion from Uganda of all Asians, an important portion of the work force. Within three months, all 60'000 had fled. Idi Amin had seized control of Uganda in 1971. His behavior in power become curiouser and curiouser, until, faced with diplomatic and economic chaos, he was forced to flee the country in 1979, charged with murdering up to 300'000 people. He was never brought to justice, finding asylum in Saudi Arabia.

1972 El Tribunal Internacional de La Haya acepta las solicitudes presentadas por Reino Unido y RFA y prohibe a Islandia que amplíe sus aguas jurisdiccionales.
1968 Vietnam: US Defense Department says combat missions flown over North Vietnam since February 1965 number 117'000. They dropped over 2.5 million tons of bombs and rockets.
1961 Berlin Wall begins to be built.
1960 Gabon independence from France (National Day)
1960 Francis Gary Powers' spy trial opens in Moscow, on his 31st birthday. He pleads guilty to spying over the Soviet Union in a U-2 plane. The plane had been shot down and he had been captured on 1 May, which led to the "U-2 confrontation" between US and USSR.
1959 The USSR and Iraq sign contract for building Iraqi nuclear reactor.
1958 Falla el primer intento de enviar un cohete a la Luna.
1957 Comienza a funcionar en Ginebra el primer acelerador de partículas europeo, con una potencia de 600 millones de voltios.
1950 On the 5th anniversary of the declaration of independence, independent in fact since 27 December 1949, the Unitary State of the Republic on Indonesia is restored.
1948 Alger Hiss, 43, denies ever being a Communist agent. In 1950 he was convicted of lying. In the 1990s there came to light conflicting evidence about his guilt from Soviet and US espionage archives. Hiss died on 15 November 1996, 4 days after his 92nd birthday.
1946 Comienza la guerra civil en Grecia.
1945 Upon hearing confirmation that Japan has surrendered, Sukarno proclaims Indonesia's independence from Netherlands (National Day). — Sukarno proclama la independencia de Indonesia, no reconocida por Holanda hasta cuatro años después.
1944 The puppet mayor of Nazi-occupied Paris, Pierre Charles Tattinger, meets with the German commander Dietrich von Choltitz to protest the explosives being deployed throughout the city.

1943 Patton's army occupies Messina      ^top^
      US Lieutenant General George S. Patton and his Seventh Army arrive in Messina several hours before British Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery and his Eighth Army, winning the unofficial "Race to Messina" between the two egocentric and brilliant commanders. This completes the Allied conquest of Sicily.
      Patton was born in San Gabriel, California, in 1885. His family had a long history of military service. After studying at West Point, he served as a tank officer in World War I, and these experiences, along with his extensive military study, led him to become an advocate of the crucial importance of the tank in future warfare. After the American entrance into World War II, Patton, who been placed in command of an important US tank division, played a key role in the Allied invasion of French North Africa in 1942. In 1943, Patton led the Seventh Army in its assault on Sicily, and won fame for out-commanding Montgomery pincer movement against Messina.
      Although Patton was one of the ablest American commanders in World War II, he was also one of the most controversial. He presented himself as a modern-day cavalryman, designed his own uniform, and was known to make eccentric claims of his direct descent from great military leaders of the past through reincarnation.
      During the Sicilian campaign, Patton generated considerable controversy when he accused two US soldiers suffering from battle fatigue of cowardice, and then personally struck them across the face. The famously profane general was forced to issue a public apology and was reprimanded by General Dwight Eisenhower.
      However, when time for the invasion of Western Europe came, Eisenhower could find no general as formidable as Patton, and the general was again granted an important military post. In 1944, Patton commanded the US Third Army in the invasion of France, and in December of that year, his supreme expertise in military movement and tank warfare helped crush the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes.
      General Patton is said to have declared, "Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance." On 21 December 1945, Patton died in a hospital in Germany from injuries sustained in an automobile accident near Mannheim.

1942 Marine Raiders attack Makin Island in the Gilbert Islands from two submarines.
1942 US bombers make 1st independent raid on Europe, on Rouen, France
1940 II Guerra Mundial. Alemania declara el "bloqueo total" al Reino Unido y manifiesta que todos los mares que lo circundan son zona de guerra.
1940 US President Franklin Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister William Mackenzie King met in Ogdensburg, N.Y., where they agreed to set up a joint defense commission.

1939 The coming World War II affects the US economy. ^top^
Hitler has rejected US proposals for keeping the peace, he has denounced the non-aggression pact with Poland, he is massing his troops to seize the Polish port city of Danzig. US stocks and bonds suffer their biggest decline since July. But far from throwing the US back into the depths of the Depression, the prospect of war stimulate the economy. The government spends billions on preparing for the war and the defense industries surge with activity. By the end of 1939, unemployment would decline substantially and the index of industrial production rise considerably. The national income rises, peaking between 1944 and 1945. It is true that the rate of inflation jumped when the war began and various necessities had to be rationed. But the American economy rose out of the Depression-era and into a prolonged period of prosperity.

1918 Fuerzas turcas ocupan Armenia y avanzan hacia el Cáucaso.
1896 Gold nuggets are found by a prospecting party in Canada in a small tributary of the Klondike River (which is a tributary of the Yukon River). A gold rush would begin in 1897 and crest in 1898, miners and adventurers pouring in, mainly from the US. The Klondike would be the last and most publicized of all the great rushes.
1863 Fort Sumter: Federal batteries and ships begin the great bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston harbor, South Carolina, as the siege of Fort Wagner continues during the US Civil War.
1862 Sioux uprising begins in southwest Minnesota
1846 US takes Los Angeles
1833 The first steam ship to cross the Atlantic entirely on its own power, the Canadian ship Royal William, begins her journey from Nova Scotia to The Isle of Wight.
1812 Battle of Smolensk: Napoléon's army defeats the Russians during the Russian retreat to Moscow.
1807 Robert Fulton's North River Steam Boat Clermont begins heading up New York's Hudson River on its successful round-trip to Albany.
1801 Ultima prueba del sumergible inventado por el estadounidense Robert Fulton, que permaneció bajo el agua más de cuatro horas.
1743 Treaty of Abo: Sweden cedes southeast Finland to Russia, ending Sweden's failed 1741-1743 war with Russia.
1717 Felipe V suprime por decreto todas las Universidades de Cataluña, en represalia por la actitud contraria a su causa en la guerra de sucesión.

1590 Lost Colony      ^top^
      John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returns from a supply-trip to England to find the settlement deserted. White and his men find no trace of the 117 colonists he left behind, and there was no sign of violence. Among the missing were Ellinor Dare, White's daughter, and Virginia Dare , White's granddaughter and the first English child born in America, who was 9 days old when White left. The next day, August 18, was to have been Virginia's third birthday. The only clue to their mysterious disappearance was the word "Croatoan" carved on a post. White took it to mean that the colonists had moved to Croatoan Island, some eighty kilometers away, but a search of the island found neither settlers nor sign of settlement. Perhaps it meant that Indians from Croatoan had attacked the settlers.
      The Roanoke Island colony, the first permanent English settlement in the New World, was founded by English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh in August of 1585. However, the first Roanoke colonists did not fare well and returned to England after less than a year. In 1587, Raleigh sent out another group under John White. The community was not known to have bad relations with its Native-American neighbors. The mystery of the lost colony has never been solved.

1560 The Scottish estates abolish Roman Catholicism.
1558 Los tercios españoles mandados por Alejandro Farnesio entran en la ciudad de Amberes tras un asedio de casi un año.
1502 Cristóbal Colón toma posesión del territorio de Honduras en nombre de los Reyes de España.
0682 St Leo II is consecrated Pope, after waiting since his election on 10 June 681 for the approval of the Byzantine emperor.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on an 17 August:

1999 At least 17'118 die in Turkish earthquake.      ^top^
      50'000 injured, thousands missing, about 600'000 people homeless and extensive damage in Istanbul, Kocaeli and Sakarya Provinces. Felt as far east as Ankara. Damage costs estimated at $3 to 6.5 billion.
     It starts at 00:01:39 and strong shaking lasts 37 seconds. The magnitude is 7.5. The epicenter is at 40.748ºN, 29.864ºE, at a depth of 17 km..
     Earthquake consisted of 120 km of right-lateral, strike-slip motion on the nearly vertical North Anatolian fault, between Karamursel and Golyaka. Rupture from west to east, in two rupture events. Maximum fault displacement 5 meters; maximum acceleration 0.3-0.4g.

1992 Dos guardias civiles asesinados en Oyarzun (Guipúzcoa), lo que pone fin a una supuesta "tregua tácita" de ETA (Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna), que duró 68 días, y a las esperanzas de paz que suscitó.

1988 Mohammad Zia ul-Haq (Pakistan's dictator), the US ambassador to Pakistan, and 28 others, in a plane crash near Bahawalpur, in Punjab, which a US-Pakistani investigation would concluded was caused by “a criminal act of sabotage.” It is the eve of Zia's 64th birthday. This ends the longest period of rule by a single leader in Pakistan's history. General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, chief of the army staff (COAS), had taken control of Pakistan by proclaiming martial law and ousting Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in July 1977.
MORE ON ZIA UL-HAQ

1987 Rudolf Hess, 93, suicide.      ^top^
      Adolf Hitler's former deputy, is found hanged in Spandau Prison in Berlin, apparently a suicide. Sole prisoner in Spandau since 1966, Hess was the last surviving member of Hitler's inner circle and the sole prisoner at Spandau since 1966. Convicted at the Nuremberg war-crimes trial in 1946, he had been serving a life sentence since then.
      Hess, an early and devoted follower of Nazism, participated in Hitler's failed "Beer Hall Putsch" in 1923. He escaped to Austria but voluntarily returned to Germany to join Hitler in Landsberg jail. During his eight months in prison, Hitler dictated to Hess his life story — Mein Kampf.
      In 1933, Hess became deputy Führer, but Hitler later lost faith in his leadership ability and made him second in line of succession, after Hermann Goering.
      In May 1941, Hess stole an airplane and landed it in Scotland on a self-styled mission to negotiate a peace between Britain and Germany. He was immediately arrested by British authorities. His peace proposal — met with no response from the British — was essentially the same as the peace offer made by Hitler in July 1940: an end to hostilities with Britain and its empire in exchange for a free German hand on the European continent. However, by May 1941 the Battle of Britain had been lost by Germany, and Hitler rightly condemned Hess of suffering from "pacifist delusions" in thinking that a resurgent Britain would make peace.
      Held in Britain until the end of the war, Hess was tried at Nuremberg after the war with other top Nazis. Because he had missed out on the worst years of Nazi atrocities and had sought peace in 1941, he was not sentenced to death but to life imprisonment. He was held in Spandau Prison in Berlin, and the USSR, the United States, Britain, and France shared responsibility in guarding him.

1985: 60 personas al estallar un coche-bomba en un supermercado de Beirut (Líbano).
1983 Ira Gershwin, 86, lyricist, in Beverly Hills
1976 Unas 3000 personas por un terremoto en Filipinas. 90'000 sufren daños.
1975 Sergei Fomin, mathematician
1973 Conrad Aiken, 74, Pulitzer winning poet
1969: 248 persons by Hurricane Camille, on the US Gulf Coast.
1965 Guillermo Fernández Shaw, poeta y actor español.
1962 Peter Fechter, 18, shot by East German border guards, as he attempts to cross Berlin Wall (on its first anniversary) into western sector.

1959 Joan Ventosa i Calvell, jurista y político catalán.
1955 Fernand Léger, French painter, draftsman, illustrator, printmaker, stage designer, film maker, and ceramicist, born on 04 February 1881. — MORE ON LÉGER AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — LÉGER AT ARTNET — Sketch for The Railway Crossing — Divers on a Yellow Background — Two Women Holding Flowers — Les Fortifications d'Ajaccio — Deux femmes tenant des fleurs — Personnages et Plantes — Composition — Les disques — L'ouvrier Constructeur — Composition au Vase Bleu (glazed ceramic relief) — Femme Avec un Vase — Composition pour un Vitrail — Design for the Cover of Fortune Magazine — Etoile de mer — Femmes au Perroquet (polychrome ceramic relief) — L'ouvrier Constructeur — La grande Parade — Le Loisirs sur Fond Rouge (tapestry) — Le Tournesol (lithograph) — a different Le Tournesol (polychrome ceramic) — Murale #2 — Personnages et Plantes — Racine Noire (color lithograph)
1947 Prince Napoleon Nikolaus Eugen, Swedish artist born on 01 August 1865.

1942:: 30 Marine raiders on Makin atoll: 14 killed in action, 7 drowned, 9 beheaded      ^top^
      Lt. Col. Evans F. Carlson and a force of Marine raiders come ashore Makin Island, in the west Pacific Ocean, occupied by the Japanese. What began as a diversionary tactic almost ended in disaster for the Americans. Two American submarines, the Argonaut and the Nautilus, approach Makin Island, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands, which had been seized by the Japanese on December 9, 1941. The subs unload 122 Marines, one of two new raider battalions. Their leader is Lt. Col. Evans Carlson, a former lecturer on postrevolutionary China. Their mission is to assault the Japanese-occupied Makin Island as a diversionary tactic, keeping the Japanese troops "busy" so they would not be able to reinforce troops currently under assault by Americans on Guadalcanal Island.
      Carlson's "Raiders" land quietly, unobserved, coming ashore on inflatable rafts powered by outboard motors. Suddenly, one of the Marines' rifles goes off, alerting the Japanese, who unleash enormous firepower: grenades, flamethrowers, and machine guns. The subs give some cover by firing their deck guns, but by night the Marines have to begin withdrawing from the island. Some Marines drown when their rafts overturn; about 100 make it back to the subs. Carlson and a handful of his men stay behind to sabotage a Japanese gas dump and to seize documents. They then head to the submarines too.
      When all was said and done, seven Marines drowned, 14 were killed by Japanese gunfire, and nine were captured and beheaded. Carlson went on to fight with the US forces on Guadalcanal. He was a source of controversy; having been sent as a US observer with Mao's Army in 1937, he developed a great respect for the "spiritual strength" of the communist forces and even advocated their guerrilla-style tactics. He remained an avid fan of the Chinese communists even after the war.

1928 Sir George Otto, 2nd Baronet Trevelyan, 90, English historian and statesman remembered for his biography of his uncle Lord Macaulay, Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay (1876, 2 vol.), and for his part in the political events surrounding Prime Minister William Gladstone's introduction of Irish Home Rule (1886), which Trevelyan first opposed and then reluctantly supported. His historical works include also the Early History of Charles James Fox (1880) and six volumes on the US War of Independence.
1927 Ivar Fredholm, mathematician best remembered for his work on integral equations and spectral theory.
1924 Urysohn, mathematician.
1920 Ray Chapman, of the Indians baseball team, from being hit in the head by Yanks' Carl Mays pitch the previous day. (only major league fatality)

1915 Leo Max Frank, 31, lynched      ^top^
     He was the manager of the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta, Georgia, from the time of its establishment sometime in 1909. On April 26, 1913, one of his employees, a young girl named Mary Phagan, was brutally murdered in the factory. On flimsy evidence and in an atmosphere of antisemitism, Frank was convicted of this crime in the summer of 1913 and sentenced to be hanged. For most of the next two years, Frank’s lawyers appealed the death sentence, twice to the United States Supreme Court, but to no avail.
      In June 1915, shortly before he was to leave office, Governor John M. Slaton, convinced of Frank's innocence, commuted the death sentence to life in prison. About two months later, Frank was kidnapped from the state prison farm at Milledgeville, transported about 280 km to Cobb County, original home of Mary Phagan, and lynched near a place called Frey’s Mill on the morning of 17 August 1915. None of the lynchers of Frank was ever tried for the murder of Frank, much less convicted; in fact the identity of the lynchers has remained a closely-guarded secret. In January 2000, most of those presumed to have made up the lynching mob were listed on the web site http://leofranklynchers.com/leofranklynchers.html. The case is examined in detail at http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/leofrank.htm.
     The emotions aroused by these events stimulated the foundation of the Anti Defamation League on one part, and a revival of the Ku Klux Klan on the other.

1906 Elizabeth Missing Sewell, author. SEWELL ONLINE: Principles of Education, Drawn from Nature and Revelation, and Applied to Female Education in the Upper Classes
1899 William Simpson, British artist born on 28 October 1823.
1850 José Francisco de San Martín, South American independence hero.
1831 Peter Patrick Nasmith, British artist born on 07 January 1787.
1815 Johann-Daniel Bager, German artist born in 1734.
1807 Tetens, mathematician
1786 FRÉDÉRIC II le GRAND Roi de Prusse depuis 1740; son père pour l'aguerrir, le " Roi Sergent ", lui donnait une éducation très sévère et le giflait même en public. Quand il monte sur le trône à 28 ans, il va poursuivre la politique de conquête de la Prusse ancètre du Pangermanisme. Il annexe une partie de l'Autriche et de la Pologne.
1769 Giuseppe Bazzani, Italian artist born in 1690.

Births which occurred on an 17 August:
1961 The Alliance for Progress is established by the US under the Kennedy administration, with 22 Latin American countries, in the Charter of Punta del Este.
1932 V.S. Naipaul Trinidad, novelist (Middle Passage)
1929 Francis Gary Powers U-2 plane pilot (USSR captures him in 1959 U-2 incident and, on his 31st birthday, puts him on trial)
1926 Jiang Zemin, político chino.
1923 Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg “Larry Rivers“, proto-Pop painter and sculptor, jazz saxophonist, writer, poet, teacher, sometime actor and filmmaker, whose partly self-mocking bad boy persona encapsulated the spirit of a restless era that shook up US art. He died on 14 August 2002. Author of autobiography What Did I Do? — MORE ON RIVERS AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — The Athlete's Dream — Bike Girls — Parts of the Face: French Vocabulary Lesson — French Money — Primo Levi: Witness Drawing _ detail — On the Phone

1915 Self-starter for cars. ^top^
Charles F. Kettering of Detroit, Michigan, patents the electric automobile self-starter. Kettering, along with Edward A. Deeds, founded Delco (Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company). Kettering and his company invented countless improvements for the automobile, including lighting and ignition systems, lacquer finishes, antilock fuels, and leaded gasoline. The Cadillac was the first car to use the electric starter, and Delco would later become a subsidiary of General Motors. Incidentally, before he started working on cars, Kettering also invented the first electric cash register.

1909 Andrew McNally III, an executive of Rand McNally & Co., in Chicago. Rand McNally & Co. is the oldest map publisher in the country. Aside from atlases, reference guides, and textbooks, Rand McNally also published the first road guide for the automobile. At the turn of the century, many roads were unmarked and hard to follow, but the road map and the highway system changed all that.

1902 Ángel José Battistessa, escritor argentino.
1890 Harry Hopkins, who organized the Works Projects Administration under President Roosevelt.

1890 Ralph R. Teetor, inventor of the cruise control, in Hagerstown, Indiana ^top^
A mechanical engineer with a degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Teetor began working at the Light Inspection Car Company. This family business eventually evolved into the Perfect Circle Company, of which Teetor became president. Teetor had a knack for invention and continued to work on new ideas after his retirement. His accomplishments are even more remarkable because he was blinded at the age of six, but never let his handicap keep him from his dream of becoming an inventor.

1887 Marcus Garvey, Jamaican-born black nationalist who advocated the back-to-Africa movement among US blacks
1882 Samuel Goldwyn, American movie mogul who helped start MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer).
1876 Eric Drummond 1st Secretary-General of League of Nations (1919-33).
1870 Frederick Russell developed 1st successful typhoid fever vaccine
1863 Geneva Grace Stratton-Porter, author.
1862 Maurice Barres, escritor francés.

1851 Henry Drummond, professor of theology, minister of the Free Church of Scotland, author of: Tropical Africa (1888) in addition to the works listed below. He died on 11 March 1897. DRUMMOND ONLINE:
Addresses The Greatest Thing in the World and Other Addresses (1894) The Ideal Life and Other Unpublished Addresses (1897) A Life for a Life, and Other Addresses The Lowell Lectures on the Ascent of Man (1894)	Natural Law in the Spiritual World (1883) The New Evangelism and Other Papers (1899) Stones Rolled Away, and Other Addresses to Young Men Baxter's Second Innings The Monkey who Wouldn't Kill

1844 Menelik II King of Ethiopia (1896-1913)
1839 Matthijs Maris, Dutch artist specialized in Landscapes, who died on 22 August 1917. — Young Girl Sewing (black chalk) — Nest of dogs — The Baptistry, Lausanne (washed sepia) — Men Unloading Carts, Montmartre — Evening (Forest Landscape with a Deer) (etching)
1839 Charles Hermanns, Belgian artist who died in 1924.
1835 William Guthrie, author. GUTHRIE ONLINE: The Christian's Great Interest
1823 Frederich Wilhelm Keyl, German painter who practiced mainly in England and died on 05 December 1871. — At the Blacksmith's Shop.
1812 Mariano Roca de Togores, político español.
1809 The Christian Association of Washington is formed in Pennsylvania by Thomas Campbell, 46, his son Alexander, 20, and followers. Springing out of the Presbyterian Church, the group became known first as Campbellites and then as Disciples of Christ.
1801 Edward Deering Mansfield, author. MANSFIELD ONLINE: American Education: Its Principles and Elements
1787 Isaac Taylor, author. ISAAC TAYLOR ONLINE: Physical Theory of Another Life, and of Scenes in America, for the Amusement and Instruction of Little Tarry-at-Home Travellers
1786 Davy Crockett US frontiersman, adventurer, and politician who died in the defense of the Alamo.
1778 John Varley, British painter who died on 17 November 1842. — LINKS — Untitled landscape — The Thames — Hilly Landscape — Landscape with tree and cottage— High Street, Conway.
1778 Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek, Dutch artist who died on 12 January 1851.
1755 Thomas Stothard, English Romantic painter, designer, and illustrator, who died on 27 April 1834. — MORE ON STOTHARD AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — The Schoolboy (engraving with hand coloring in the book Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man illustrated) — Shakespeare - Othello-Act II, Scene 1 (engraving with hand coloring 49x64cm)
— Shakespeare - King Henry the Eighth, Act I, Scene 4 (engraving with hand coloring 50x64cm) — Plate XV and Plate III (1782) two engravings [Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, riding] in The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote, translated from the Spanish of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra by Dr. Smollett
1720 Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen, French artist who died on 04 January 1778. — MORE ON EISEN AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — Allegorical Composition — Le Chien Dansant
1623 Christiaan Luykx, Flemish artist who died after 1653.
1601 Pierre Fermat, lawyer and government official most remembered for his work in number theory, in particular for Fermat's Last Theorem (of which his proof could not fit in the margin, so no one knows what it was).

Holidays Argentina : San Martin Day (1850) / India : Janmashtami / Indonesia-1945, Gabon-1960 : Independence Day

Religious Observances Christian : St Ethelred / RC : St Hyacinth of Silesia, confessor / Santos Beatriz de Silva, Juliana, Anastasio, Bonifacio, Donato, Jacinto, Librado y Paulino.

Thoughts for the day : “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” — FDR, first inaugural address (4 March 1933)
“We have nothing to fear but the fear of fear itself.” — me, at my home address (16 August 2001).
“We have nothing to fear but the saying that we have nothing to fear.” — me again.
“We have nothing to fear but that's because we have nothing.” — my class of disadvantaged 8~year~olds.
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself ought to fear us.”
“Those who have everything have everything to fear from those who have nothing.”
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it." — Edith Wharton, US author (1862-1937).
“The best way of spreading light is not to light a candle, but to open the shutters to the sunlight.”
“If you want to be a mirror spreading light, reflect sunlight, not candlelight.”
“No man-made object reflects as much light as the Moon reflects sunlight.”

TO THE TOP

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO “TODAY IN HISTORY”
updated 020816 04:08 UT

site safe for children

http:// +
canu.host.sk/history/h4aug/h4aug
elpn.com/canu/history/h4aug/h4aug
www.jcanu.hpg.com.br/history/h4aug/h4aug
h42day.0catch.com/history/h4aug/h4aug
www.hostultra.com/~canu/history/h4aug/h4aug
+ 17.html