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Today is:
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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..
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
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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