Today is: August  24

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

Saint Bartholomew Feast Day - He is patron saint of plasterers. If his feast day is fair and clear, a prosperous autumn is almost certain.

Vesuvius Day - In 79 A.D., Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the resort town of Pompeii, Italy. 20,000 people died. Pompeii is now one of the richest archaeological digs. Even bread has been found buried in ovens.

Windows 95 Birthday

Born on this Day

• 1113: Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, He conquered Normandy.
  
  

• 1198: Alexander II, King of Scotland
  
  

• 1210: Count of Holland Floris IV
  
  

• 1531: Composer Ercole Bottrigari
  
  

• 1579: Composer John Amner
  
  

• 1591: English poet Robert Herrick (Gather ye rosebuds)
  
  

• 1669: Composer Alessandro Marcello
  
  

• 1712: Dutch mathematician and astronomer Cornelis Douwes
  
  

• 1759: Pioneer British abolitionist William Wilberforce
  
  

• 1772: Grand duke of Luxembourg and king of Netherlands Willem I Frederik (1814-40)
  
  

• 1787: Antarctic explorer James Weddell, Ostend England
  
  

• 1816: Sir Daniel Gooch, laid 1st successful trans-Atlantic cables
  
  

• 1817: Russian poet and writer Aleksei K Tolstoi [Kozjma Prutkov]
  
  

• 1820:Composer Jacopo Tomadini
  
  

• 1821: Composer Emmanuele Muzio
  
  

• 1828: Brigadere General George Hume "Maryland" Steuart (Confederate Army)
  
  

• 1837: Composer Theodore Dubois
  
  

• 1839: Composer Eduard Napravnik
  
  

• 1842: Flemish painter Edouard J A Agneessens (Slave Market)
  
  

• 1880: Joshua Lionel Cowen, inventor of the electric toy train
  
  

• 1872: English author and parodist Sir Max Beerbohm
  
  

• 1886: William Francis Gibbs, naval architect, designed the Liberty ships
  
  

• 1895: Roman Catholic Cardinal Richard Cushing, archbishop of Boston
  
  

• 1897: Country music publisher Fred Rose
  
  

• 1898: Malcolm Cowley, poet and translator who wrote The Dream of the Golden Mountains
  
  

• 1899: Author Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Borges, referred to as the "Blind Visionary", was a leader of the Ultraismo movement of literature in Latin America, which combined abstract images with surrealist thought.
  
  

• 1912: TV personality Durward Kirby
  
  

• 1917: TV host Dennis James
  
  

• 1925: Former education secretary Shirley Hufstedler
  
  

• 1929: Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Movement
  
  

• 1938: Composer-musician-author Mason Williams
  
  

• 1944: Rock musician Jim Capaldi (Traffic)
  
  

• 1945: Rock musician Ken Hensley (Uriah Heep)
  
  

• 1949: Actor Joe Regalbuto ("Murphy Brown")
  
  

• 1951: US, sci-fi author Orson Scott Card Winner of Hugo and Nebula Awards for Ender's War
  
  

• 1956: Boxer Gerry Cooney
  
  

• 1958: Actor Steve Guttenberg
  
  

• 1960: Baseball player Cal Ripken Junior  
  
  

• 1962: Talk show host Craig Kilborn ("The Late Late Show")
  
  

• 1963: Rock singer John Bush (Anthrax)
  
  

• 1965: Actress Marlee Matlin 
  
  

• 1970: Country singer Kristyn Osborn (SheDaisy)
  
  

• 1971: Model Claudia Schiffer
  
  

• 1973: Actor-comedian Dave Chappelle
  
  

• 1973: Actor Barret Oliver (Never Ending Story, Secret Garden) 
  
  

• 1973: Actor-comedian Dave Chappelle
  

• 1973: Actor Carmine Giovinazzo ("Shasta McNasty")
         
  
  

Events in History on this day
  

• 0079: Long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash. An estimated 20-thousand people died.  See today's History Focus
  
  
  

• 0410: Rome was overrun by the Visigoths, an event that symbolized the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
  
  
  

• 1179: Saladin besieges the castle of Chastelet
  
  
  

• 1236: Pope Gregory relieves the Stedingers of excommunication
  
  
  

• 1273: Coronation of Rudolph of Hapsburg as King of Germany
  
  
  

• 1313: Death of Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor
  
  
  

• 1349: 6,000 Jews killed at Mainz
  
  
  

• 1456: Printing of the Gutenberg Bible completed
  
  
  

• 1524: Beginning of the Peasant's War
  
  
  

• 1542: In South America, Gonzalo Pizarro returns to the mouth of the Amazon River after having sailed the length of the great river as far as the Andes Mountains.
  
  
  

• 1565: Failure of the Rebellion of the Earl of Murray against Mary, Queen of Scots
  
  
  

• 1572: The slaughter of French Protestants at the hands of Catholics began in Paris. Known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The massacre continued throughout France and some 50,000 French Protestants (Huguenots) were slaughtered.
  
  
  

• 1585: Margaret Rohrfelder, Barbara Ulmer and Ursula Sailler, burned as witches.(burned at Waldsee, Germany)
  
  
  

• 1780: King Louis XVI abolishes torture as a means to get suspects to confess.
  
  
  

• 1782: A letter was on its way from Leopold Mozart, desribing his son Wolfgang as lazy. Leopold and Wolfgang always had difficult relations. Leopold was sharply critical of his son to his face as well as to third parties.
  
  
  

• 1814: British troops under General Robert Ross capture Washington, D.C., which they set on fire in retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. With Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's flagship unable to fight, an outmatched British flotilla faced the prospect of a remarkable victory. But Perry transferred his pennant to another ship and fought on.
  
  

• 1869: Cornelius Swarthout received a patent for the waffle iron.
  
  
  

• 1891: Thomas Edison files a patent for the motion picture camera. Unfortunately, the film was not patented for another 6 years.
  
  
  

• 1894: Congress passes the first graduated income tax law, which is declared unconstitutional the next year.
  
  
  

• 1909: Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
  
  
  

• 1932: Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly non-stop across the United States, traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, in just over 19 hours.
  
  
  

• 1942: In the battle of the Eastern Solomons, the third carrier-versus-carrier battle of the war, U.S. naval forces defeat a Japanese force attempting to screen reinforcements for the Guadalcanal fighting.
  
  

• 1948: Edith Mae Irby becomes the University of Arkansas' first African-American student.
  
  
  

• 1949: The North Atlantic Treaty went into effect.
  
  
  

• 1954: The Communist Control Act went into effect, virtually outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.
  
  
  

• 1959: Three days after Hawaiian statehood, Hiram L. Fong was sworn in as the first Chinese-American US Senator while Daniel K. Inouye was sworn in as the first Japanese-American US Representative.
  
  
  

• 1968: France became the world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.
  
  
  

• 1970: A bomb planted by anti-war extremists exploded at the University of Wisconsin's Army Math Research Center in Madison, killing 33-year-old researcher Robert Fassnacht.
  
  
  

• 1972: Cornelius Cardew founded a consort that he called the "Scratch Orchestra." On this day "Scratch Orchestra" was performed at the Promos in London, playing a work by Cardew.
  
  
  

• 1981: Mark David Chapman was sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for shooting to death rock star John Lennon.
  
  
  

• 1983: Corazon Aquino, widow of Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., returned to her homeland for her husband's funeral, rejecting President Ferdinand E. Marcos' denial that his government had any part in Aquino's assassination.
  
  
  

• 1984: On the heels of the Republican convention, Democrat Walter F. Mondale said the proceedings had demonstrated that President Reagan represented the party of the rich, while Reagan questioned Mondale's commitment to a strong defense.
  
  
  

• 1985: Security police in South Africa reported arresting 27 anti-apartheid leaders as racial violence continued to rock the country.
  
  
  

• 1986: Financially troubled Frontier Airlines shut down, stranding thousands of passengers throughout the West.
  
  
  

• 1987: A military jury in Quantico, Virginia, sentenced Marine Sergeant Clayton Lonetree to 30 years in prison for disclosing US secrets to the Soviet Union. (The sentence was later reduced; with additional time off for good behavior, Lonetree ended up serving eight years in a military prison.)
  
  
  

• 1987: A federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that public schools could require students to study textbooks not accepted by religious fundamentalists.
  
  
  

• 1988: Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis picked up the endorsement of the AFL-CIO while Republican nominee George Bush campaigned in California with President Reagan.
  
  
  

• 1989: Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose from baseball for life after having been caught gambling.
  
  
  

• 1989: Colombian drug lords declared "total war" on the government.
  
  
  

• 1989: Voyager II flies past Neptune.
  
  
  

• 1990: Iraqi troops surrounded foreign missions in Kuwait. Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev sent a message to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein warning the Persian Gulf situation was "extremely dangerous.""
  
  
  

• 1990: Irish-British hostage Brian Kennan was released by his captors in Lebanon after being held more than four years.
  
  
  

• 1990: A Reno, Nevada, judge ruled that the British heavy metal rock band "Judas Priest" was not responsible for the deaths of two youths who shot themselves after listening to the band's music.
  
  
  

• 1991: Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party, culminating a stunning Kremlin shakeup that followed the failed coup by hard-liners. In Moscow, thousands of people held a martyrs' funeral for three men killed fighting the coup.
  
  
  

• 1992: Hurricane "Andrew" smashed into Florida with sustained winds of up to 145 mph, causing record damage; 55 deaths in Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas were blamed on the storm.
  
  
  

• 1992: China and South Korea established diplomatic ties.
  
  
  

• 1993: The Clinton administration unveiled its proposed revisions to wetlands policy, which would expand protection, but also give landowners some of the flexibility they had long sought.
  
  
  

• 1994: Israeli and PLO negotiators reached agreement on an accord to give the Palestinians control of health care, taxation, education and other services in West Bank areas still controlled by Israel.
  
  
  

• 1994: A Washington, D.C., superior court denied Benjamin Chavis's request to block his ouster as executive director of the NAACP.
  
  
  

• 1995: China expelled Chinese-American human rights activist Harry Wu, hours after convicting him of spying.
  
  
  

• 1995: Microsoft Corp. began selling its highly publicized Windows 95 personal computer software.
  
  
  

• 1995: Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt died. His photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse in New York's Times Square became one of the best known images of America's joy at Japan's surrender in World War II.
  
  
  

• 1996: Four women began two days of academic orientation at The Citadel; they were the first female cadets admitted to the South Carolina military school since Shannon Faulkner.
  
  
  

• 1997: Pope John Paul the Second offered tough challenges and affectionate encouragement to more than one million faithful attending Mass during closing World Youth Day ceremonies in Paris.
  
  

• 1998: The United States and Britain agreed to allow two Libyan suspects wanted in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 to be tried in a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.
  
  

• 1998: Actor E.G. Marshall died in Mount Kisco, New York, at age 84.
  
  

• 1998: A federal court rejected the Census Bureau's plans to use statistical sampling for the 2000 census, a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court.
  

• 1999: The Federal Reserve raised borrowing costs for millions of Americans, increasing its target for the federal funds rate by a quarter point to 5.25 percent, and hiking the discount rate a quarter point to 4.75 percent.
  
  

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