Today is: August 9

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

Betty Boop's Birthday - On this day in 1930, a forerunner of Betty Boop, a cartoon cararacter created by Max Fleischer, made her debut in the animated short "Dizzy Dishes."

International Day of Solidarity with the Struggle of the Women of South Africa and Nambia - Sponsor: United Nations.

Isaac Walton Day - Born this day in 1593, he authored one of the first books about fishing - "The Complete Angler."

Presidential Resignation Anniversary - On this day in 1974, Richard Nixon resigned the U.S. Presidency, unfortunately the current president did not have the courage or dignity to follow this tradition.

Smokey the Bear Birthday - Born this day in 1944.

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Born on this Day

• 1593: English author and angler Izaak Walton
  
  

• 1603: Dutch theologian Johannes Cocceius. He based his theory of life on the Bible and recommended a life in and through the Scriptures rathr than the church and orthodoxy.
  
  

• 1631: John Dryden
  
  

• 1788: Adoniram Judson, American Baptist missionary. TODAY's BONUS HISTORY FACT
  
  

• 1884: Anglican theologian Sir Edward C. Hoskyns.
  
  

• 1896: Pioneer Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget
  
  

• 1919: Former baseball manager Ralph Houk
  
  

• 1927: Robert Shaw England, actor (Deep, Jaws, Sting, Black Sunday)
  
  

• 1927: Marvin Minsky Artifical intelligence computer scientist (MIT)
  
  

• 1930: Betty Boop animation (debutes in Max Fleischer's animated cartoon Dizzy Dishes)
  
  

• 1934: Country singer-songwriter Merle Kilgore
  
  

• 1938: Australian tennis star Rod Laver
  
  

• 1939: Rhythm-and-blues singer Billy Henderson (The Spinners)
  
  

• 1942: Comedian-director David Steinberg
  
  

• 1944: Actor Sam Elliott
  
  

• 1945: Boxing Hall-of-Famer Ken Norton
  
  

• 1947: Singer Barbara Mason
  
  

• 1955: Football player Doug Williams
  
  

• 1955: Rock singer Benjamin Orr (The Cars)
  
  

• 1957: Actress Melanie Griffith
  
  

• 1958: Actress Amanda Bearse
  
  

• 1959: Rapper Kurtis Blow
  
  

• 1963: Singer Whitney Houston
  
  

• 1966: Actor Pat Petersen
  
  

• 1967: Baseball player Deion Sanders
  
  

• 1968: Actress Gillian Anderson ("The X-Files")
  
  

• 1971: Rapper Mack 10
  
  

• 1972: Actress Liz Vassey
  

• 1976: Actress Jessica Capshaw       
         
  
  

Events in History on this day
  

• 0480 B.C.: After one of history's most famous battles, Persian forces finally overran the heavily outnumbered Spartan defenders of the narrow pass at Thermopylae in Greece.
  
  

• 0378: Battle of Adrianople, Visigoth Calvary defeats Roman Army
  
  

• 0803: St. Irene, 1st Byzantine Empress, dies
  
  

• 1048: Death of Pope Damascus II. He was pope from July to August of 1048.
  
  

• 1378: The Election of Urban VI as Pope declared null
  
  

• 1391: 300 Jews killed in Barcelona riots, for refusing baptism.
  
  

• 1420: Pierre d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai (1397-1420), died at the age of 70. He sought to end the papal schism at the Council of Constance.
  
  

• 1471: Sixtus IV was named pope. He served until 1484. He forstered the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, condemed the abuses of the Inquisition and launched an extensive building program in Rome (Sistine Chapel, Sistine Bridge).
  
  

• 1483: First Mass celebrated in the Sistine Chapel.
  
  

• 1549: England declares war on France
  
  

• 1637: The funeral of Ben Jonson, playwright, held
  
  

• 1638: Jonas Bronck of Holland becomes 1st European settler in the Bronx
  
  

• 1645: Mohawks force peace to the New Netherlands' Indian War
  
  

• 1790: The "Columbia" returned to Boston Harbor after a three-year voyage, becoming the first ship to carry the American flag around the world.
  
  

• 1797: The Methodist New Connection was formed by Alexander Kilham and three other Methodist clergymen in Leeds, favoring complete separation from the Church of England.
  
  

• 1842: The United States and Canada signed the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, resolving a border dispute.
  
  

• 1848: The Free-Soil Party nominated Martin Van Buren for president at its convention in Buffalo, New York.
  
  

• 1854: Henry David Thoreau published "Walden," in which he described his experiences while living near Walden Pond in Massachusetts.
  
  

• 1859: Nathan Ames, of Saugus, MA, patented the escalator
  
  

• 1862: Hector Berlioz conducted the premiere of his "Beatrice et Benedict" at Baden-Baden. Berlioz, who was as good a writer as a composer, described "Beatrice et Benedict" as, quote, "a caprice written with the point of a needle."
  
  

• 1859: Nathan Ames, of Saugus, MA, patented the escalator
  
  

• 1910: A.J. Fisher of Chicago, IL, received a patent for the electric washing machine.
  
  

• 1919: Ruggiero Leoncavallo died at the age of 61. Leoncavallo turned out to be a one-hit composer his brief but gripping "Pagliacci" is regularly performed together with another short opera, Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana."
  
  

• 1928: Percy Grainger was married to Ella Viola Strom. People talk about Grainger's excessively close relationship to his mother and his penchant for whipping himself, but Grainger also had a sense of fun, evidenced by the fact that his wedding took place at the Hollywood Bowl.
  
  

• 1936: Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics as the United States took first place in the 400-meter relay.
  
  

• 1944: "Smokey the Bear" was created by the Forest Service and Wartime Advertising Council to represent forest fire prevention.
  
  

• 1945: Three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, the United States exploded a nuclear device over Nagasaki, killing an estimated 74-thousand people.A B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, at 11:02 a.m. local time.
  
  

• 1945: The first network television broadcast originated from Washington, D.C., studios of W3XWT (now WTTG), then the DuMont television station. The program announced the second atomic bomb dropping on Nagasaki, Japan.
  
  

• 1964: Joan Baez and Bob Dylan shared the stage for the first time when the singers performed in a concert in Forest Hills, New York.
  
  

• 1965: Singapore proclaimed its independence from the Malaysian Federation.
  
  

• 1969: Actress Sharon Tate and four other people were found brutally murdered in Tate's Los Angeles home; cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his disciples were later convicted of the crime.
  
  

• 1971: LeRoy satchel Paige, one of baseball's pitching legends, was inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
  
  

• 1973: Nearly 500 delegates representing more than 200 Southern Presbyterian churches, meeting in Ashville, N.C., severed ties to the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. because of their liberal views.
  
  

• 1974: President Richard M. Nixon formally resigned as president of the United States becoming the first person in the history of the country to resign the top political office in the land. Gerald R. Ford became the nation's 38th chief executive.
  
  

• 1975: The New Orleans Superdome opened as the hometown Saints met the Houston Oilers in an exhibition football game. The Oilers won 31-to-7. The Superdome cost $163 million to construct.
  
  

• 1983: Guatemala's new military leader, Brigadier General Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores lifted a 40-day-old state of alert imposed by the president he ousted, Efrain Rios Montt.
  
  

• 1984: At the 1984 Summer Olympics, Britain's Daley Thompson won his second successive Olympic decathlon.
  
  

• 1985: A federal judge in Norfolk, Virginia, found retired Navy officer Arthur J. Walker guilty of seven counts of spying for the Soviet Union.
  
  

• 1986: President Reagan underwent a urological examination at Bethesda Naval Hospital, and said afterward, "Everything's normal, everything's fine."
  
  

• 1987: Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, vowing to investigate the Iran-Contra affair "vigorously but fairly," told a meeting of the American Bar Association in San Francisco that he would not be deterred by the "popularity of persons involved."
  
  

• 1988: President Reagan nominated Lauro Cavazos to be secretary of education; Cavazos became the first Hispanic to serve in the Cabinet.
  
  

• 1988: Hockey star Wayne Gretzky of the Edmonton Oilers was traded to the Los Angeles Kings per his request.
  
  

• 1989: Tishiki Kaifu was elected prime minister of Japan, succeeding Sousuke Uno.
  
  

• 1989: In Mexico, a train fell into the San Rafael River after a bridge collapsed, killing 112 people.
  
  

• 1990: A week after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Western European diplomats and Arab witnesses reported that Iraq had virtually sealed its borders, preventing thousands of foreigners from leaving Iraq or Kuwait.
  
  

• 1991: In South Africa, hundreds of police battled neo-Nazis as pro-apartheid extremists tried to stop a speech by President F.W. de Klerk.
  
  

• 1992: Closing ceremonies were held for the Barcelona Summer Olympics, with the Unified Team of former Soviet republics winning 112 medals, the United States, 108.
  
  

• 1993: Reputed "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss pleaded innocent in Los Angeles to five counts of pandering and one count of selling cocaine. (Fleiss was convicted in 1994 of three counts of pandering and acquitted of the drug charge, but the verdicts were later thrown out due to jury misconduct. Fleiss eventually pleaded guilty to attempted pandering.)
  
  

• 1994: A divided Senate opened formal debate on legislation to provide health insurance for millions of Americans without it.
  
  

• 1995: Jerry Garcia, lead singer of the Grateful Dead, died in San Francisco of a heart attack at age 53.
  
  

• 1996: Bob Dole telephoned Jack Kemp to ask him to be his running mate; Kemp accepted.
  
  

• 1996: A weary-looking Boris Yeltsin was sworn into his second term as president of Russia.
  
  

• 1997: An Amtrak train with nearly 300 people aboard derailed on a bridge near Kingman, Arizona; more than 100 people were injured.
  
  

• 1998: Americans, Kenyans and Tanzanians held church and memorial services to mourn those killed in a pair of US embassy bombing attacks.
  
  

• 1998: In China, engineers dynamited levees along the Yangtze River to ease the worst floods in 44 years.
  

• 1999: Russian President Boris Yeltsin dismissed Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin and the entire Cabinet, marking the fourth time in 17 months he had fired the government. Yeltsin named Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, the new prime minister.
  

• 2000: Bridgestone/Firestone Incorporated announced it was recalling six and a-half million tires that had been implicated in hundreds of accidents and at least 46 deaths.
  
  

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