Today is: August  21

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

Sit Back and Relax Day - Take time to enjoy the summer, now, before it is gone. Sponsor: Open Horizon

Born on this Day

• 1165: Philip Augustus, 1st great Capetian king of France (1179-1223)
  
  

• 1567: St. Francis de Sales, patron of writers See today's History Focus
  
  

• 1579: French Huguenot leader Henri II, Duke de Rohan-Gi
  
  

• 1642: Composer Johann Friedrich Treiber
  
  

• 1643: Afonso VI, king of Portugal (1656-67) (mentally ill)
  
  

• 1660: Hubert Gautier, engineer, wrote 1st book on bridge building.
  
  

• 1689: Composer Jose Pradas Gallen
  
  

• 1721: Dutch poet Lucretia W van Winter-van Merken
  
  

• 1798: Jules Michelet, French historian who wrote the 24-volume Historie de France
  
  

• 1872: Artist Aubrey Beardsley (Salome) See today's History Focus
  
  

• 1904: William "Count" Basie, American band leader and composer
  
  

• 1906: Friz Freleng animator (Bugs Bunny-Emmy 1982)
  
  

• 1921: Actress Nancy Kulp (Jane-Beverly Hillbillies)
  
  

• 1923: Sportscaster Chris Shenkel (Monday Night Fights) some sources say 1933
  
  

• 1928: Jazz musician Art Farmer
  
  

• 1930: Britain's Princess Margaret
  
  

• 1932: Actor-director Melvin Van Peebles
  
  

• 1936: Basketball Hall-of-Famer Wilt Chamberlain
  
  

• 1938: Singer Kenny Rogers
  
  

• 1939: Actor Clarence Williams the Third
  
  

• 1939: Singer Harold Reid (The Statler Brothers)
  
  

• 1944: Singer Jackie DeShannon
  
  

• 1945: Actress Patty McCormack ("The Bad Seed")
  
  

• 1951: T-V host Harry Smith
  
  

• 1952: Rock musician Joe Strummer (The Clash)
  
  

• 1954: Country musician Nick Kane (The Mavericks)
  
  

• 1956: Actress Kim Cattrall
  
  

• 1959: Football quarterback Jim McMahon
  
  

• 1971: Rock musician Liam Howlett (Prodigy)
  
  

• 1975: Actress Alicia Witt ("Cybill")
  
  

• 1989: Actress Hayden Panettiere 
         
  
  

Events in History on this day
  

• 1131: Death of Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem
  
  
  

• 1160: Peter Lombard, theologian, writer, dies
  
  
  

• 1192: Minamoto Yoritomo named Shogun
  
  
  

• 1241: Death of Pope Gregory IX
  
  
  

• 1535: Richard Layton, agent of Henry VIII of England, arrives at Glastonbury Abbey to inquire of conditions
  
  
  

• 1567: Death of St. Francis de Sales
  
  
  

• 1581: Francisco Chamuscado claims Arizona/New Mexico for Spain
  
  
  

• 1614: Death of Countess Elizabeth Bathory
  
  
  

• 1621: One widow and eleven maidens consigned to the Virginia colony were ordered to be sold at the rate of 120 pounds of tobacco for each
  
  
  

• 1647: The bones of Picart, and the living body of Thomas Boulle, are burned
  
  
  

• 1680: Pueblo Indians took possession of Santa Fe, New Mexico, after driving out the Spanish.
  
  
  

• 1794: France surrenders the island of Corsica to the British.
  
  
  

• 1808: Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington, and his British troops defeated the French at the Battle of Vimiero in the Iberian Peninsular War.
  
  
  

• 1810: One of Napoleon's generals, Marshal Bernadotte, was elected Crown Prince of Sweden using the name Charles John.
  
  
  

• 1831: Former slave Nat Turner led a violent insurrection in Virginia that kills 57 whites. (He was later executed.)
  
  
  

• 1841: John Hampton of New Orleans, LA, received a patent for venetian blinds this day.
  
  
  

• 1858: The famous debates between Senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas began.
  
  
  

• 1878: The American Bar Association was founded in Saratoga, New York.
  
  
  

• 1888: William Burroughs of St. Louis, MO, patented his adding machine on this day. It was an invention that bore the name of Burrough's office machine company for many years.
  
  
  

• 1915: Italy declares war on Turkey.
  
  
  

• 1938: The classic recording, Ain't Misbehavin was made this day by Fats Waller.
  
  
  

• 1940: Exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky died in Mexico City from wounds inflicted by an assassin.
  
  
  

• 1942: U.S. Marines turn back the first major Japanese ground attack on Guadalcanal in the Battle of Tenaru. The Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal spelled the difference between victory and defeat for the United States in the Pacific war.
  
  
  

• 1945: President Truman ended the Lend-Lease program that had shipped some $50 billion in aid to America's allies during World War Two.
  
  
  

• 1950: The United Nations moved into its new permanent facilities in York City on land donated by the Rockefeller family.
  
  
  

• 1959: President Eisenhower signed an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union.
  
  
  

• 1963: The South Vietnamese Army arrests over 100 Buddhist monks in Saigon. U.S. complicity in the overthrow of South Vietnam's president made it impossible to stay uninvolved in the war.
  
  
  

• 1968: Soviet forces invade Czechoslovakia because of the country's experiments with a more liberal government.
  
  
  

• 1982: A group of Palestinian guerrillas left Lebanon by ship under an evacuation plan mediated by the United States.
  
  
  

• 1983: Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Junior, ending a self-imposed exile in the United States, was shot dead moments after stepping off a plane at Manila International Airport.
  
  
  

• 1984: Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro appeared before reporters in Queens, N.Y., for nearly two hours to field questions about her family's finances, conceding errors, but denying any wrongdoing.
  
  
  

• 1984: Victoria Roche of Belgium became the first girl to compete in a Little League World Series game. The reserve outfielder played in the annual event held in Williamsport, Pennsylvania - with her brother, starting outfielder Jeremy Roche.
  
  
  

• 1984: Clint Eastwood was honored with his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of the Mann's Chinese Theater.
  
  
  

• 1985: The United States accused the Soviet Union of using "spy dust" to track the movements of U.S. Embassy personnel in Moscow, a charge rejected by the Kremlin as "absurd.""
  
  
  

• 1986: The Boston Red Sox made history against the Cleveland Indians. The Red Sox defeated the Indians 24-5 - the worst loss in the "Tribe's" 85-year history. Greg Swindell made his major-league pitching debut for the Indians.
  
  
  

• 1986: More than 1,700 died when toxic gas erupted from a volcanic lake in the West African nation of Cameroon.
  
  
  

• 1987: Sergeant Clayton Lonetree, the first Marine ever court-martialed for spying, was convicted in Quantico, Virginia, of passing secrets to the KGB after becoming romantically involved with a Soviet woman while serving as a US Embassy guard in Moscow. (Lonetree ended up serving eight years in a military prison, and was released in February 1996.)
  
  
  

• 1988: More than 1,000 people were killed in an earthquake on the Nepal-India border.
  
  
  

• 1989: The U.S. space probe Voyager 2 fired its thrusters to bring it closer to Neptune's mysterious moon Triton.
  
  
  

• 1989: Columbian soldiers and police raided the estates of drug lords as part of a crackdown that followed the shooting death of a presidential candidate.
  
  
  

• 1990: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein delivered a speech in which he defended the detaining of foreigners in his country, and promised "a major catastrophe" should fighting break out in the Persian Gulf.
  
  
  

• 1991: The hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian federation President Boris N. Yeltsin.
  
  
  

• 1992: The day after the close of the Republican national convention in Houston, the two major party candidates traded hard blows, with President Bush deriding Bill Clinton as a "wishy-washy" leader, and Clinton lashing back at Bush as a "great fearmonger."
  
  
  

• 1992: Fugitive neo-Nazi leader Randall Weaver opened fire on U.S. marshals from inside his Idaho mountaintop home. When the standoff ended 11 days later with his surrender, three people - a deputy marshall, Weaver's wife and teenage son - were dead.
  
  
  

• 1992: NBC News fired correspondent and Gulf War "scud stud" Arthur Kent following two weeks of wrangling over his turning down an assignment to war-torn Croatia.
  
  
  

• 1993: In a serious setback for NASA, engineers lost contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft as it was about to reach the Red Planet on a $980 million mission -- its fate remains unknown.
  
  
  

• 1994: The House, by a vote of 235 to 195, passed a $30 billion crime bill that banned certain assault-style firearms.
  
  
  

• 1994: Mexico held its presidential election, which was won by Ernesto Zedillo.
  
  
  

• 1995: A commuter plane crashed near Carrollton, Georgia, killing nine people.
  
  
  

• 1995: ABC News settled a $10 billion libel suit by apologizing to Philip Morris for reporting the tobacco giant had manipulated the amount of nicotine in its cigarettes.
  
  
  

• 1995: A suicide bomber set off an explosion that tore through two crowded Israeli commuter buses, killing five others. A commuter plane crashed near Carrollton, Ga., killing nine people.
  
  
  

• 1996: President Clinton signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, aimed at making health insurance easier to obtain and keep.
  
  

• 1996: Christie Lee Woods, 18, of Texas, crowned 14th Miss Teen USA
  
  

• 1996: Netscape Browser 3.0 is released
  
  
  

• 1997: Hudson Foods Company's plant in Nebraska closed, agreeing to destroy some 25 million pounds of hamburger after the largest meat recall in US history.
  
  

• 1997: Typhoon Winnie kills 140, injures 3,000 in East China
  
  

• 1998: Samuel Bowers, a 73-year-old former Ku Klux Klan leader, was convicted in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, of ordering a 1966 firebombing that killed civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer.
  
  

• 2017: Next total solar eclipse visible from North America.
  
  

• 1998: Monica Lewinsky went before a grand jury for a second round of explicit testimony about her White House trysts with President Clinton.
  

• 1999: President Clinton urged Americans to contribute to the relief effort for Turkey, where the death toll from an earthquake four days earlier topped 12,000; it eventually reached 17,000.
  
  

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