Today is: August 8

Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
Proverbs 27:1

August is:

Children's Vision and Learning Month National Back-to-School Month National Inventors' Month Science / Medicine / Technology Book Month Spinal Muscular Atrophy Awareness Month

Odie's Birthday - Odie the dog (Garfield's best friend), first appeared in the comic strip on this day in 1978.

Saint Dominic Feast Day - Patron saint of astronomers.

Sneak a Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Night - Get rid of those extra zucchini squash by sneaking one onto the porch of your neighbor under the cover of darkness. Sponsor: Wellness Permission League.

Swim Day - Celebrated on the birthday of Esther Williams. The professional swimmer and actress was born on this day in 1923, in Los Angeles. California. In her honor go out for a swim. Sponsor: The Life of the Party..

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Born on this Day

• 1075: Abu al-Qasim az-Samakhshari, Persian theologian, philologist
  
  

• 1602: Gilles Personne de Roberval, French geometrician, inventor
  
  

• 1652: Jacques Basnage, French Reformed Church clergyman. He aided diplomatically in arranging Triple Alliance at the Hague.
  
  

• 1763: Charles Bullfinch, 1st US professional architect.
  
  

• 1794: Jean Henri Merle d'Aubigne, Swiss ecclesiatical historian. Authoer of a multi-volume history of the Reformation.
  
  

• 1810: Emmanuel M. J. d'Alzon, founder of the Augustinians of the Assumption.
  
  

• 1814: George E. Ellis, Unitarian clergyman. Editor of the Christian Register and Christian Examiner.
  
  

• 1866: Matthew Henson (explorer: North Pole expedition [1908-09 with Robert Peary]
  
  

• 1876: Metropolitan Leonty, dean of the first Russian Orthodox theological seminary in the United States (1906-1915).
  
  

• 1896: Author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (The Yearling)
  
  

• 19??: Steve Mason (Jars of Clay)
  
  

• 1907: Jazz musician Benny Carter
  
  

• 1908: Former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg.
  
  

• 1910: Actress Sylvia Sidney
  
  

• 1911: Actress Rosetta LeNoire
  
  

• 1919: Producer Dino DeLaurentiis
  
  

• 1922: Actor Rory Calhoun (Francis Durgin)(Angel, Apache Uprising, River of No return, Treasure of Pancho Villa)
  
  

• 1922: Rudi Gernreich, designed 1st women's topless swimsuit & the miniskirt
  
  

• 1923: Actress Esther Williams
  
  

• 1926: Actor Richard Anderson
  
  

• 1930: Joan Mondale (wife of former Vice President Walter F. Mondale)
  
  

• 1930: Actress Nita Talbot
  
  

• 1932: Singer Mel Tillis
  
  

• 1937: Actor Dustin Hoffman
  
  

• 1938: Actress Connie Stevens
  
  

• 1939: Country singer Phil Balsley (The Statler Brothers)
  
  

• 1944: Movie director Peter Weir ("Fearless", "The Truman Show")
  
  

• 1947: Actor Larry Wilcox
  
  

• 1949: Brian Sipe (Cleveland Browns: NFL Player of the Year [1980]; U.S. Football League [1985-86])
  
  

• 1949: Actor Keith Carradine
  
  

• 1949: Rhythm-and-blues singer Airrion Love (The Stylistics)
  
  

• 1950: Country singer Jamie O'Hara
  
  

• 1951: Movie director Martin Brest
  
  

• 1953: Actor Donny Most
  
  

• 1957: Rock musician Dennis Drew (10,000 Maniacs)
  
  

• 1958: Newscaster Deborah Norville
  
  

• 1958: Actor-singer Harry Crosby
  
  

• 1961: Rock musician The Edge (U2)
  
  

• 1961: Rock musician Rikki Rockett (Poison)
  
  

• 1962: Rapper Kool Moe Dee
  
  

• 1973: Country singer Mark Wills
  
  

• 1976: Rhythm-and-blues singer Drew Lachey (98 Degrees)
  
  

• 1976: Singer JC Chasez ('N Sync)
  
  

• 1988: Britain's Princess Beatrice Elizabeth Mary        
         
  
  

Events in History on this day
  

• 0449:The Council of Ephesus upholds the Monophysite view
  
  

• 0869: Death of Lothair, King of Lorraine
  
  

• 1296: A priest, one Matthew of York, and one William le Waleys, are accused of burglary of 3 shillings worth of beer, in Perth
  
  

• 1296: The Stone of Scone stolen by Edward I, King of England
  
  

• 1306: Murder of Wenceslas III, King of Poland
  
  

• 1308: The Pope summons witnesses for the Templar trials
  
  

• 1471: Death of Thomas Kempis at the age of 91. He was a Dutch mystic and devotional author. TODAY's BONUS HISTORY FACT
  
  

• 1503: Marriage of Margaret of England to King James IV of Scotland
  
  

• 1540: Marriage of King Henry VIII of England to Catherine Howard
  
  

• 1553: Girolamo Fracastoro, physician, poet, scientist, dies
  
  

• 1570: Charles IX, King of France, signs the Treaty of St. Germain
  
  

• 1609: Venetian Senate examines Galileo's telescope
  
  

• 1648: Ibrahim "the Mad," Ottoman Sultan, deposed and killed.
  
  

• 1815: Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for St. Helena to spend the remainder of his days in exile.
  
  

• 1844: Brigham Young was chosen to lead the Mormons following the killing of Joseph Smith.
  
  

• 1852: The Swedish Baptist General Conference of America began with the baptism of three persons from Rock Island, Ill. in the Mississippi River. They we baptised by Gustaf Palmquist of Sweden.
  
  

• 1874: Modest Mussorgsky completed "Pictures at an Exhibition" on this day in 1874. It was inspired by a real-life exhibition of paintings by Victor Hartmann. Mussorgsky attended, and made musical sketches.
  
  

• 1876: Thomas A. Edison received a patent for his mimeograph.
  
  

• 1899: A.T. Marshall of Brockton, MA patented the refrigerator on this day.
  
  

• 1911: Membership in the U.S. House of Representatives was established at 435 on this day. Every 211,877 residents of the U.S. were represented by one member of Congress.
  
  

• 1940: The German Luftwaffe began a series of daylight air raids on Britain.
  
  

• 1942: Six convicted Nazi saboteurs who'd landed in the US were executed in Washington DC; two others received life imprisonment.
  
  

• 1945: The Soviet Union declared war on Japan,two days after the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and seven days before Tokyo surrendered.
  
  

• 1945: President Truman signed the United Nations Charter.
  
  

• 1945: The Soviet Union declared war against Japan during World War Two.
  
  

• 1953: The United States and South Korea initiated a mutual security pact.
  
  

• 1960: Decca Records in Britain destroyed 25,000 copies of "Tell Laura I Love Her," saying the song was "too tasteless and vulgar for the English sensibility."
  
  

• 1963: Britain's "Great Train Robbery" took place as thieves made off with 2.6 million pounds in banknotes.
  
  

• 1967: Ginastera's opera"Bomarzo" was banned in his homeland of Argentina. Military authorities, who were many years from losing the Falklands War and still had a tight grip on Argentinean society, said "Bomarzo" was too violent for public consumption.
  
  

• 1968: Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president at the Republican national convention in Miami Beach. (Later that day, Nixon chose Maryland Governor Spiro T. Agnew to be his running mate.)
  
  

• 1973: Vice President Spiro T. Agnew branded as "damned lies" reports he had taken kickbacks from government contracts in Maryland, and vowed not to resign -- which he eventually did.
  
  

• 1974: President Nixon announced he would resign following new damaging revelations in the Watergate scandal.
  
  

• 1975: Hank Williams, Jr., the son of the legendary country singer Hank Williams, fell 500 feet down a mountain in Montana. He suffered multiple injuries, but after two years of surgery, he returned to music as a legend in his own right.
  
  

• 1978: Odie the dog, Garfield's best fiend, fist appeared in the cartoon.
  
  

• 1983: A jury in Kansas City, Missouri, awarded TV anchorwoman Christine Craft $500,000 in her sex discrimination suit against the former owner of KMBC-TV. The award was later overturned.
  
  

• 1983: Brig. Gen. Efrain Rios Montt was deposed as president of Guatemala.
  
  

• 1984: Carl Lewis won his third gold medal of the Summer Olympic Games, winning the 200 meters race in a time of 19.80 seconds.
  
  

• 1985: A bomb exploded outside the Rhein-Mein U.S. air base near Frankfurt, killing two Americans, in an attack blamed on the Red Army Faction.
  
  

• 1986: 17 people were killed when a car bomb exploded in a shopping district in west Beirut - the third car-bombing in the Lebanese capital in 12 days.
  
  

• 1987: The opening ceremonies of the Pan American Games were held in Indianapolis, Indiana. A two-hour extravaganza called "The Magic That's America" was presented at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
  
  

• 1987: In the Persian Gulf, a Navy F-14 "Tomcat" fighter fired two missiles at an Iranian jet approaching an unarmed US scout plane. Both missiles missed their target, and the Iranian plane flew off.
  
  

• 1988: The Duchess of York, the former Sarah Ferguson, wife of Britain's Prince Andrew, gave birth to their first child, a girl they name Beatrice.
  
  

• 1988: UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar announced a cease-fire between Iran and Iraq.
  
  

• 1989: The space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a secret five-day military mission that reportedly included the deployment of a spy satellite.
  
  

• 1990: As the Persian Gulf crisis deepened, American forces began taking up positions in Saudi Arabia; Iraq announced it had annexed Kuwait; President Bush warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that "a line has been drawn in the sand.""
  
  

• 1991: Lebanese kidnappers freed British TV producer John McCarthy, held hostage for more than five years; however, a rival group abducted Frenchman Jerome Leyraud, threatening to kill him if any more hostages were released.
  
  

• 1991: The slain bodies of former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar and his chief of staff were found in Bakhtiar's residence outside Paris.
  
  

• 1991: The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved membership applications from North and South Korea.
  
  

• 1992: AIDS activist Alison Gertz died in Westhampton Beach, Long Island, New York, at age 26.
  
  

• 1992: Eight people were injured when more than 10,000 fans rioted inside a stadium in Montreal after Guns N' Roses canceled its concert in mid-show. It was the second riot linked to the rock group and its lead singer, Axl Rose.
  
  

• 1992: The US basketball "Dream Team" clinched the gold at the Barcelona Summer Olympics, defeating Croatia 117-to-85.
  
  

• 1992: The space shuttle "Atlantis" returned from a problem-plagued mission. AIDS activist Alison Gertz died in Westhampton Beach, Long Island, New York, at age 26.
  
  

• 1993: In Somalia, four US soldiers were killed when a land mine was detonated underneath their vehicle, prompting President Clinton to order Army Rangers to try to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
  
  

• 1994: Israel and Jordan opened the first road link between the two once-warring countries; Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin became the first Israeli head of government to officially set foot on Jordanian soil.
  
  

• 1995: Feigning environmental concern, President Clinton ordered all companies doing business with the federal government to report the pollution they cause. This was said during  a visit to Baltimore.
  
  

• 1995: The regime of Iraq's Saddam Hussein was shaken when his two eldest daughters, their husbands and other senior army officers defected.
  
  

• 1996: President Clinton belittled Bob Dole's tax plan, vowing to oppose tax cuts that he said the country couldn't afford. Republican sources, meanwhile, said Dole was seriously considering Jack Kemp to be his running mate.
  
  

• 1997: The Teamsters and United Parcel Service completed a second day of federally mediated talks, with neither side reporting progress toward ending a strike.
  
  

• 1998: President Clinton, in his Saturday radio address, vowed the bombers of two US embassies in Africa would be brought to justice, "no matter how long it takes or where it takes us."
  

• 1999: Opening a new attack on the Republican tax-cut measure,  President Clinton falsely warned the nation's governors at their meeting in St. Louis that the $792 billion package would trigger "huge cuts" in Medicare, farm programs and other spending critical to their voters.
  

• 2000: Vice President Al Gore formally introduced and celebrated his Jewish running mate, Senator Joseph Lieberman, during an appearance in Gore's home state of Tennessee. 
  

• 2000: A bomb ripped through an underground walkway in central Moscow, killing at least 13 people. 
  

• 2000: Chile's Supreme Court stripped General Augusto Pinochet's immunity, clearing the way for the former dictator to be tried on human rights charges. (However, an appeals court later ruled Pinochet unfit to stand trial because of his deteriorating health and mental condition.)
  
  

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