Today is: August 14

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

International Gourmet Day - Celebrated on the birthday of Julia Child. On this day we celebrate all gourmets and gourmet chefs. Julia was born in 1912 in Pasidina, California. Sponsor: All My Events.

National Senior Citizens Day - On this day in 1935, the Social Security Act was passed.

Oregon Territory Day - On this day in 1848, the Oregon Territory was established.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe Feast Day - A modern-day saint in Nazi Poland, patron saint of political prisoners.

Wiffle Ball Birthday - In 1953, David Mullany, Sr. invented the ball for his 13-year-old son.

Klondike Gold Discovery Day - George Carmack discovered gold on this day in 1896 at Bonanza Creek in the Yukon. Celebrated in the Yukon on the nearest Monday to August 16.

Born on this Day

• 1552: Philosopher Fra Paolo Sarpi, [Paulus Venetus]
  
  

• 1642: Cosimo III de' Medici, monarch of Florence (1670-1723)
  
  

• 1675: Composer Johann Georg Christian Storl, composer
  
  

• 1688: Frederik Willem I, king of Prussia (bodyguard of giants)
  
  

• 1714: French painter Claude-Joseph Vernet
  
  

• 1737: Mathematician Charles Hutton
  
  

• 1742: French ballerina Marie Allard,(Auguste Vestris)
  
  

• 1810: Samuel S. Wesley, (grandson of Methodist hymnwriter Charles Wesley) is born. He also was a sacred composer and penned over 130 original hymn tunes. The best remembered of these today is AURELIA, to which is sung "The Church's One Foundation."
  
  

• 1840: Pioneer psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing
  
  

• 1860: Naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton
  
  

• 1863: Writer Ernest Thayer ("Casey at the Bat")
  
  

• 1867: English novelist John Galsworthy
  
  

• 1899: Composer Jaroslav Jeremias
  
  

• 1900: Composer Shalva Mikhailovich Taktakishvili
  
  

• 1901: Educator, Publisher, phonetic speller James Pitman (Bath England)
  
  

• 1903: Actor Millard Mitchell (12 O'Clock High, Gunfighter)
  
  

• 1903: John Ringling North circus director
  
  

• 1907: Songwriter Stanley Adams
  
  

• 1920: Actor Nehemiah Persoff (Al Capone, Yentl)
  
  

• 1925: Newspaper columnist Russell Baker
  
  

• 1926: Singer Buddy Greco
  
  

• 1926: Actress Alice Ghostley (Bewitched, Designing Women)
  
  

• 1929: Bishop of Exeter Hewlett Thompson
  
  

• 1930: Earl Weaver (baseball: Baltimore Orioles manager; TV analyst: ABC's Monday Night Baseball, playoffs, World Series; autobiography: It's What You Learn After You Know It All that Counts)
  
  

• 1938: LPGA golfer Betsy Cullen
  
  

• 1940: Singer Dash Crofts
  
  

• 1941: Rock singer David Crosby
  
  

• 1941: Singer Connie Smith, (Dream Painter, New Horizons)
  
  

• 1944: Jockey Robyn Smith Astaire, wife of Fred Astaire
  
  

• 1945: Comedian-actor Steve Martin (Parenthood, Jerk, Roxanne)
  
  

• 1945: Actress Brenda Benet (Lee-Days of Our Lives, Beach Ball)
  
  

• 1946: Actress Susan Saint James
  
  

• 1946: Singer-musician Larry Graham
  
  

• 1946: Actor Antonio Fargas
  
  

• 1947: Author Danielle Steel (Vanished, Wanderlust, Daddy)
  
  

• 1950: "Far Side" cartoonist Gary Larson
  
  

• 1950: Rock singer-musician Terry Adams (NRBQ)
  
  

• 1953: Film composer James Horner ("Titanic")
  
  

• 1956: Actress Jackee Harry
  
  

• 1959: Basketball star Magic Johnson
  
  

• 1961: Actress Susan Olsen (The Bradys, The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Bunch)
  
  

• 1965: Actress Emmanuelle Beart ("Mission: Impossible")
  
  

• 1966: Actor David Hallyday (He's My Girl)
  
  

• 1968: Actress, Miss World USA, Halle Berry (Cleveland, Ohio)
  
  

• 1968: Actress Catherine Bell ("JAG")
  
  

• 1983: Actress Mila Kunis ("That 70's Show")       
         
  
  

Events in History on this day
  

• 1040: Duncan I, King of Scotland killed by MacBeth
  
  

• 1415: Henry V and his army lands in France, at about 6:30 am
  
  

• 1424: Scots take the English town of Verneuil by trickery
  
  

• 1447: The Meeting at Broletto Field re-establishes the commune in Florence
  
  

• 1464: Pope Pius II dies at Ancona leading a crusade against the Turks
  
  

• 1498: Columbus lands at the mouth of the Orinoco River, Venezuela
  
  

• 1559: Tristan de Luna y Arellano enters Pensacola Bay, Florida
  
  

• 1619: New "blue laws" enacted in Virginia
  
  

• 1814: A comic opera by Rossini, "Turk in Italy," was premiered at La Scala. Rossini was then 22. Rossini achieved his first success with one-act comedies in his late teens. His first two full-length operas were the drama "Tancredi" and the comedy "L'Italiana in Algeri."
  
  

• 1842: Seminole War ends; Indians removed from Florida to Oklahoma
  
  

• 1846: Henry David Thoreau jailed for tax resistance.
  
  

• 1848: English devotional writer Sarah Flower Adams dies at the age of 43. In 1845 she published The Flock at the Fountain, a catechism containing hymns for children. One of those hymns remains popular to this day: "Nearer, My God, To Thee."
  
  

• 1848: The Oregon Territory was established.
  
  

• 1876: The first "Ring" Cycle at Bayreuth continued with "Die Walkyre," and the first reviews began to appear in print. Wagnerites in London and Paris hailed the operas. But even the most diehard Wagner fans reported that the Bayreuth theater could be more comfortable.
  
  

• 1888: Oliver B. Shallenberger, of Rochester, PA, received a patent for the electric meter. This is an invention I could do without!
  
  

• 1900: International forces -- including 2,000 US Marines -- entered Beijing to put down the Boxer Rebellion, which was aimed at purging China of foreigners.
  
  

• 1917: China declared war on Germany and Austria during World War One.
  
  

• 1935: Congress passed the Social Security Act and President Roosevelt immediately signed it into law.
  
  

• 1941: President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter, a statement of principles that renounced aggression.
  
  

• 1945: President Truman announced that Japan had accepted terms for unconditional surrender, ending World War II.
  
  

• 1947: Pakistan became independent of British rule.
  
  

• 1953: The whiffle ball was invented.
  
  

• 1959: The first meeting to organize the American Football League was held.
  
  

• 1951: Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst died in Beverly Hills, California.
  
  

• 1962: Robbers held up a US mail truck in Plymouth, Massachusetts, making off with more than one and a-half million dollars.
  
  

• 1969: British troops arrived in Northern Ireland to intervene in sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
  
  

• 1971: Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals pitched a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was the first no-hitter against the Pirates since 1955.
  
  

• 1973: The U-S bombing of Cambodia came to a halt, marking the official end to 12 years of American combat in Indochina.
  
  

• 1980: Workers at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, went on strike, which would later result in the creation of the Solidarity labor movement.
  
  

• 1981: Pope John Paul II left a Rome hospital, three months after being wounded in an attempt on his life.
  
  

• 1984: The Soviet Union denounced President Reagan's off-the-record joke, made three days earlier, about bombing Russia. One commentator called it "a sacred dream which popped up on the surface."
  
  

• 1985: Vice President Bush led a celebration aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise marking the 40th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.
  
  

• 1986: U.S. officials announced that members of Mexico's police force had abducted, interrogated and tortured Victor Cortez Jr., a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent.
  
  

• 1987: The government reported that America's merchandise trade deficit had soared to $15.7 billion in June 1987.
  
  

• 1988: President Reagan arrived in New Orleans on the eve of the Republican national convention that would nominate his vice president, George Bush, to be its choice to succeed him.
  
  

• 1989: South African President P.W. Botha announced his resignation after losing a bitter power struggle within his national party.
  
  

• 1990: Interrupting his vacation, President Bush returned to Washington, where he told reporters he saw no hope for a diplomatic solution to the Persian Gulf crisis, at least until economic sanctions forced Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.
  
  

• 1991: The Justice Department accused General Electric of fraud for billing the Pentagon $30 million for the non-existent sale of F-16 parts to the Israeli military.
  
  

• 1991: Freed American hostage Edward Tracy returned to the United States, arriving in Boston, where he was reunited with his sister, Maria Lambert.
  
  

• 1991: President Bush expressed ''100 percent'' support for United Nations efforts to mediate a settlement to the Middle East hostage crisis.
  
  

• 1992: Federal judge John J. Sirica, who had presided over the Watergate trials of the 1970's, died in Washington DC at age 88.
  
  

• 1992: The White House announced that the Pentagon would begin emergency airlifts of food to Somalia to alleviate mass deaths by starvation.
  
  

• 1993: A jury in New York acquitted Washington lawyer Robert Altman of fraud charges for dealings linked to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
  
  

• 1993: Pope John Paul the Second denounced abortion and euthanasia as well as sexual abuse by American priests in a speech at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver.
  
  

• 1994: Rain turned the final full day of Woodstock '94 in Saugerties, New York, into a mudbath.
  
  

• 1994: Eight children who were left alone died in an early morning house fire in Carbondale, Illinois.
  
  

• 1994: The notorious international terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal" was captured in Sudan. He was extradited to France the next day.
  
  

• 1995: Shannon Faulkner officially became the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel, South Carolina's state military college. (However, Faulkner quit the school less than a week later, citing the stress of her court fight, and her isolation among the male cadets.)
  
  

• 1996: The Republican national convention in San Diego nominated Bob Dole for president and Jack Kemp for vice president in an evening that featured a talk-show-style testimonial by Elizabeth Dole, who strolled the convention floor with a wireless microphone.
  
  

• 1996: In Peru, 35 people were electrocuted when a stray rocket during a fireworks show knocked down a high-tension line.
  
  

• 1997: An unrepentant Timothy McVeigh was formally sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing.
  
  

• 1997: Two cosmonauts (Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin) made it safely home to Earth after a luckless six-month mission aboard the Mir space station.
  
  

• 1998: A federal appealat court in Richmond, Virginia, ruled that the Food and Drug Administration had no authority to regulate tobacco, striking down FDA rules making it harder for minors to buy cigarettes; the Clinton administration said it would appeal.
  

• 1999: Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush won the Iowa straw poll.
  
  

• 1999: Death claimed former AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland at age 77
  

• 1999: Baseball Hall of Fame shortstop Pee Wee Reese died at age 81.
  

• 2000: On the opening night of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, President Clinton offered an embarrassing  triumphant review of his years in office, and exhorted delegates to propel Al Gore on the road to succeed him. 
  
  

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