Today is: August 5

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

Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead Day - In 1864, these immortal words were uttered by Admiral David Farragut as he led Union ships into Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

Federal Income Tax Birthday - In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the first income tax. The first tax was collected on August 4, 1862.

Goodbye, Norma Jean - In 1962, Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jean Mortenson) died, an apparent suicide.

Little Orphan Annie's Birthday - On this day in 1924, Harold Gray's "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip first appeared in the New York Daily News.

National Failure Day

National Mustard Day - This day honors the condiment of Kings. The Mount Horeb Mustard Museum contains the world's largest collection of prepared mustards and mustard memorabilia. Sponsor: Mount Horeb Mustard Museum.

Saint Afra Feast Day - A daughter of saint Hilaria, Saint Afra became a prostitute who was converted and later burned to death for her faith. She is considered a patron saint of fallen women.

Take a Walk on the Moon Day - Celebrated on the birthday of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. He was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio in 1930. Sponsor: The Life of the party.

Traffic Lights Birthday - in 1914, the first electric traffic lights were installed in Cleveland, Ohio.

Crop Day - Celebrated on the first Saturday in August. This day recognizes when cotton was king of all crops in the South. Sponsor: Leflore County Chamber of Commerce.

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Born on this Day

• 1540: Joseph Scaliger, who proposed the Julian Day system of dating
  
  

• 1604: John Eliot, "Apostle to the Indians," Bible translator TODAY's BONUS HISTORY FACT
  
  

• 1850: French novelist Guy de Maupassant (The Tellier House, Yvette, Toine, The Horla, The Diamond Necklace, The Umbrella, The Piece of String, A Woman's Life, Bel-Ami, Peter and John)
  
  

• 1868: Henry H. Tweedy, congregational clergyman and theologian. He was professor of practical theology at Yale (1909-1937) and author of the hymn "Eternal God, whose power upholds"
  
  

• 1889: Poet and critic Conrad Aiken (Pulitzer Prize-winning poet: Selected Poems [1930])
  
  

• 1906: Film director John Huston (Academy Award-winning director: Treasure of Sierra Madre [1948]; The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, Prizzi's Honor)
  
  

• 1911: Actor Robert Taylor (Spangler Brugh) (Magnificent Obsession, Quo Vadis, Billy the Kid, Bataan, Knights of the Round Table, The Night Walker, Death Valley Days)
  
  

• 1930: Former astronaut Neil A. Armstrong TODAY's BONUS HISTORY FACT
  
  

• 1934: Country singer Vern Gosdin
  
  

• 1934: Actress Cammie King ("Gone with the Wind")
  
  

• 1935: Actor John Saxon
  
  

• 1935: Actor Zakes Mokae ("Outbreak")
  
  

• 1940: Country songwriter Bobby Braddock
  
  

• 1943: Country singer Sammi Smith (Help Me Make It Through the Night, So Long Charlie Brown, What a Lie, You Just Hurt My Last Feeling)
  
  

• 1946: Actress Loni Anderson
  
  

• 1946: Actress Erika Slezak
  
  

• 1947: Rock singer Rick Derringer
  
  

• 1950: Actress Holly Palance
  
  

• 1953: Singer Samantha Sang
  
  

• 1956: Actress-singer Maureen McCormick
  
  

• 1959: Rock musician Pat Smear (Foo Fighters)
  
  

• 1961: Actress Tawney Kitaen
  
  

• 1961: Country musician Mark O'Connor
  
  

• 1964: Rapper MCA (The Beastie Boys)
  
  

• 1966: Actor Jonathan Silverman
  
  

• 1968: Country singer Terri Clark
  
  

• 1970: Actress Josie Bissett (Melrose Place, The Hogan Family, Mikey, All-American Murder, Book of Love)
  
  

• 1986: Actor Brendon Ryan Barrett ("Soul Man")       
         
  
  

Events in History on this day
  

• 642: Death of St. Oswald, King of Northumbria, by the hand of Penda, King of Mercia
  
  

• 0882: Death of Louis III, King of France
  
  

• 1192: JAFFA: last battle of the 3rd Crusade (Saladin, with 7000 cavalry, defeated by Richard I, with 2000 infantry, 54 knights, and 15 horses)
  
  

• 1305: Clement V elected Pope
  
  

• 1370: The Brigittine Order was approved by Pope Urban V
  
  

• 1391: Castilian sailors set fire to Barcelona's Jewish ghetto, killing 100
  
  

• 1503: Pope Alexander IV dines with Caesare Borgia and Cardinal Adriano Castellesi
  
  

• 1583: First English settlement in the New World founded at St. John's Newfoundland
  
  

• 1620: "Mayflower" and "Speedwell" sail from England
  
  

• 1633: George Abbot the Archbishop of Canterburry died at age 71.
  
  

• 1833: Chicago was incorporated as a village with a population of about 200.
  
  

• 1861: President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the first federal income tax three percent. (3% of incomes over $800). It was rescinded in 1872.
  
  

• 1864: During the Civil War, Union Admiral David G. Farragut is said to have given his famous order, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" as he led his fleet against Mobile Bay, Alabama.
  
  

• 1884: The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.
  
  

• 1900: Gustav Mahler completed his Fourth Symphony. Alma Mahler wrote that Mahler was "profoundly depressed" because composing the symphony had given his life meaning. Furthermore, she said he always got bummed out when he finished a symphony.
  
  

• 1914: The first electric traffic lights were installed, in Cleveland, Ohio. Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street in Cleveland, Ohio became the first intersection in the country to be equipped with an electric traffic light. The lighting ceremony occurred on this day.
  
  

• 1920: Leon Theremin gave the first public display of an electronic musical instrument at the Moscow Polytechnic Institute. He called it a Thereminovox but others came simply to call it the Theremin.
  
  

• 1921: KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh, PA did the first play-by-play broadcast of a baseball game. Harold Arlin described the action as the Pirates beat Philadelphia 8-5.
  
  

• 1921: The "New York World" published the first Pulitzer Prize cartoon ever awarded. "On The Road To Moscow," by Rollin Kirby, was the recipient of the prestigious journalism honor.
  
  

• 1923: Henry Sullivan became the first American to swim across the English Channel.
  
  

• 1924: The comic strip "Little Orphan Annie," by Harold Gray, made its debut.
  
  

• 1936: Jesse Owens won his third gold medal by running a 200-meter race in 20.7 seconds at the Olympic Games held in Berlin, Germany.
  
  

• 1954: The Boxing Hall of Fame inducted the first boxers. Among those first inducted were: John L. Sullivan, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Gentleman Jim Corbett, Joe Louis, and Henry Armstrong.
  
  

• 1957: "American Bandstand," hosted by Dick Clark, made its network debut on ABC.
  
  

• 1962: Actress Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortenson), 36, was found dead in her Los Angeles home; her death was ruled a "probable suicide" from an overdose of sleeping pills.
  
  

• 1963: The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union signed a treaty outlawing nuclear tests in the Earth's atmosphere, in space or under the sea.
  
  

• 1969: The US space probe "Mariner Seven" flew by Mars, sending back photographs and scientific data.
  
  

• 1974: President Nixon admitted ordering the Watergate investigation halted six days after the break-in. Nixon said he expected to be impeached.
  
  

• 1974: The comic strip "Tank McNamara" premiered in 75 newspapers. Jeff Miller and Bill Hinds created the 6-foot, 4-inch, 225-pound former defensive tackle of the "State University Sand Crabs.""
  
  

• 1975: Singer Stevie Wonder signed the recording industry's largest contract (to that date) -- $13 million over a seven-year period.
  
  

• 1981: The federal government began firing air traffic controllers who had gone out on strike.
  
  

• 1984: Actor Richard Burton died at a hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of 58.
  
  

• 1984: Joan Benoit won the first women's Olympic marathon this day at the Summer Games, held in Los Angeles
  
  

• 1986: It was revealed that artist Andrew Wyeth had, over a 15-year period, secretly created 240 drawings and paintings of a woman named Helga Testorf, a neighbor in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
  
  

• 1987: President Reagan announced his administration had reached a "general agreement" with leaders of Congress on a new Central America peace plan. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega offered to discuss the US proposal.
  
  

• 1988: Treasury Secretary James A. Baker the Third announced he was resigning to take over the presidential election campaign of Vice President George Bush. Nicholas F. Brady was nominated to take Baker's place at Treasury.
  
  

• 1989: Five Central American presidents began meeting in Honduras to discuss a timetable for dismantling Nicaraguan Contra bases.
  
  

• 1989: The world's largest hamburger was served. It was cooked and served at the Outagamie County Fair in Seymour, Wisconsin. The burger weighed 5,520 pounds and was 21 feet in diameter.
  
  

• 1990: An angry President Bush again denounced the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, telling reporters, "This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.""
  
  

• 1990: The United States sent a Marine company into Monrovia, Liberia's capital, to evacuate U.S. citizens because of a rebel threat to arrest Americans in order to provoke foreign intervention in the country's civil war.
  
  

• 1990: The world's tallest cake was completed. The cake was baked and served at the Shiawassee County Fair in Corunna, Michigan. The cake was 101 feet tall.
  
  

• 1991: Iraq admitted it misled U.N. inspectors about secret biological weapons and also admitted to extracting plutonium from fuel at a nuclear plant.
  
  

• 1991: Democratic congressional leaders formally launched an investigation into whether the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign had secretly conspired with Iran to delay release of American hostages until after the presidential election.
  
  

• 1992: Federal civil rights charges were filed against four Los Angeles police officers acquitted of California state charges in the videotaped beating of Rodney King; two were later convicted.
  
  

• 1992: Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger called for a war crimes investigation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  
  

• 1993: The US House of Representatives passed President Clinton's budget plan by a close vote of 218-to-216.
  
  

• 1993: Japan's Cabinet resigned, paving the way for the end of 38 years of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.
  
  

• 1994: A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington chose Kenneth W. Starr to take over the Whitewater investigation from Robert Fiske.
  
  

• 1994: Angered by riots, Cuban President Fidel Castro threatened to let Cubans leave without restriction for the first time since the 1980 Mariel refugee exodus.
  
  

• 1995: Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, to ''build a bridge of cooperation.'' (Christopher was the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Vietnam since the war and the first ever to go to Hanoi.)
  
  

• 1996: A bold bid to capture a skeptical public's attention, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole proposed a $548 billion tax cut.
  
  

• 1996: A jury in San Jose, California, recommended the death penalty for Richard Allen Davis, convicted of kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma.
  
  

• 1997: President Clinton signed the budget-balancing and tax-cutting bills into law, calling the legislation "a true milestone for our nation."
  
  

• 1997: A two-man Russian crew blasted off for the Mir in a smooth launch that was upstaged by another breakdown aboard the aging space station, this time involving the oxygen generators.
  
  

• 1998: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein broke off cooperation with UN weapons inspectors and demanded the commission monitoring the weapons be reorganized.
  
  

• 1998: Marie Noe of Philadelphia was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, accused of smothering eight of her children to death between 1949 and 1968. (Noe later received 20 years' probation.)
  

• 1999: Republicans overcame solid Democratic opposition to narrowly win passage of a ten-year, $792 billion tax cut, first in the House, then in the Senate; President Clinton denounced the bill and promised a veto.
  

• 1999: Richard Holbrooke won Senate confirmation as UN ambassador after a grueling 14-month battle.
  

• 1999: Mark McGwire became the 16th member of the 500-home run club, hitting two homers -- numbers 500 and 501 -- in the St. Louis Cardinals' loss to San Diego.
  

• 2000: President Clinton vetoed a Republican-sponsored tax cut for married couples, describing it as "the first installment of a fiscally reckless tax strategy." 
  

• 2000: Actor Sir Alec Guinness died at a southern England hospital at age 86.
  
  
  

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