On This Date In 1458 Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Latin Aeneas Sylvius; October 18, 1405 - August 14, 1464) was elected Pope, and served until his death in 1464.
On This Date In 1779 The Battle of Paulus Hook was fought between Continental Army and British forces in the American Revolutionary War. The Patriots, led by Major Light Horse Harry Lee, launched a nighttime raid on the British-controlled fort in what is today downtown Jersey City. They surprised the British, taking 158 prisoners, and withdrew with the approach of daylight. Despite retaining the fort and its cannons, the British lost much of their control over New Jersey. Lee was rewarded by the Second Continental Congress with a gold medal, the only non-general to receive such an award during the war.
On This Date In 1781 Through February 5, 1782, the Invasion Of Minorca took place. A Spanish army landed on the strategic island and captured it, though the British garrison held out in St. Phillip's Castle for several months until forced to surrender by scurvy.
On This Date In 1782 The Battle of Blue Licks was fought by Kentucky militiamen against a force of American and Canadian Loyalists along with 300 American Indians. This bloody frontier encounter is usually noted as the last combat of any size of the Revolutionary War, and the Kentuckians’ defeat here marked the lowest point in the Americans’ fortunes in the struggle for possession of the West. http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/winter2000/bluelick.html
On This Date In 1812 During the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution defeated the British frigate Guerrière in a furious engagement off the coast of Nova Scotia. Witnesses claimed that the British shot merely bounced off the Constitution’s sides, as if the ship were made of iron rather than wood. By the war’s end, “Old Ironsides” destroyed or captured seven more British ships.
On This Date In 1814 During the War of 1812, British troops under the command of Major General Robert Ross and Rear Admiral George Cockburn landed at Benedict, Maryland, on the shores of the Patuxent River, with the goal of capturing the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. - only a few days march away./ http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug19.html
On This Date In 1847 The Battle of Contreras, also known as the Battle of Padierna, took place August 19-20, in the final encounters of the Mexican-American War.
On This Date In 1848 The New York Herald was the first major newspaper on the East Coast to report the discovery of gold in California.
On This Date In 1871 Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 - January 30, 1948) was born in Dayton, Ohio. He and his brother Wilbur are generally credited with inventing and building the world’s first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903.
On This Date In 1909 In front of some 12,000 spectators, automotive engineer Louis Schwitzer won the two-lap, five-mile inaugural race held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, now the home of the world’s most famous motor racing competition, the Indianapolis 500.
On This Date In 1914 The Belgian city of Louvain fell to the German First Army as part of the German strategy to overrun Belgium during the month of August 1914.
On This Date In 1919 Afghan Independence Day is celebrated in Afghanistan to commemorate the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919. The treaty granted independence from Britain; although Afghanistan was never officially a part of the British Empire.
On This Date In 1919 In a break with conventional practice, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson appeared personally before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to argue in favor of its ratification of the Versailles Treaty, the peace settlement that ended the First World War.
On This Date In 1930 Francis “Frank” McCourt (August 19, 1930 - July 19, 2009), an Irish-American teacher and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, best known as the author of Angela’s Ashes, was born in Brooklyn, New York.
On This Date In 1934 The first All-American Soap Box Derby was held in Dayton after an idea by Myron Scott, a photographer for the Dayton Daily News.
On This Date In 1934 Adolf Hitler, already chancellor, was also elected president of Germany in an unprecedented consolidation of power in the short history of the republic.
On This Date In 1942 During World War II, an Allied force of 7,000 men carry out a large daytime raid against German positions at the French seaport of Dieppe, gaining a foothold on the beach in the face of a furious German defense. The Dieppe raid provided valuable logistical information later used in planning the successful 1944 Allied landing at Normandy.
On This Date In 1942 The Sinyavin Offensive, an operation planned by the Soviet Union with the aim of breaking the German blockade and establishing a reliable supply line to Leningrad (under siege for almost a year), began with the Leningrad Front, the first stage of two.
On This Date In 1946 42nd President of the United States Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe, III, in Hope, Arkansas.
On This Date In 1950 The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) first aired Saturday morning television shows for children.
On This Date In 1953 The Iranian coup d’état deposed the democratically-elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and reinstated the Shah of Iran. The United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) overthrew the government of the popular Prime Minister Mosaddeq at the request of, and with support from the British government. In what the CIA called Operation Ajax, the U.S. enabled Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to become an authoritarian monarch, who went on to rule Iran for 26 years until he was overthrown in 1979.
On This Date In 1960 Korabl-Sputnik-2 (Spaceship Satellite-2), also known as Sputnik 5, was launched. On board were the dogs Belka (Squirrel) and Strelka (Little Arrow). Also on board were 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants.
On This Date In 1960 In the USSR, captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for his confessed espionage. He would later be traded for a Soviet spy.
On This Date In 1964 More than six months after taking the East Coast by storm, the Beatles traveled to California to take the stage at the Cow Palace in San Francisco for opening night of their first-ever concert tour of North America.
On This Date In 1966 The FDA Approved Prometheus Labs’ Zyloprim (allopurinol), used to help treat the signs and symptoms of primary and secondary gout (increase blood uric acid levels).
On This Date In 1969 “Alice’s Restaurant”, a movie adapted from a song by Arlo Guthrie, was released. The song is Guthrie’s most famous work, a talking blues based on a true story that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965. The movie reproduces the events of the song, in addition to other scenes.
On This Date In 1970 Cambodia and the U.S. signed a military aid agreement worth $40 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1971. The equipment included small arms, ammunition, communications equipment, spare parts and training funds.
On This Date In 1976 Ronald Reagan addressed Kansas City convention delegates. His speech, about the tension between the dangers of nuclear weapons, the threat posed by the Soviet Union, and the need to preserve freedom, electrified the audience.
On This Date In 1980 Saudia Flight 163 was a scheduled passenger flight of Saudia that caught fire at Riyadh’s International Airport (now the Riyadh Air Base) after a flight from Karachi, Pakistan. The fire killed all 287 passengers and 14 crew on board the Lockheed L-1011-200 TriStar, registered HZ-AHK, which had been due to fly on to the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.
On This Date In 1981 The FDA Approved AstraZeneca’s Tenormin, a drug used to treat angina (chest pain caused by too little oxygen reaching the heart muscle), high blood pressure, and heart attack.
On This Date In 1987 The Hungerford massacre occurred in Hungerford, Berkshire, England. The gunman, 27-year-old Michael Robert Ryan, armed with two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun, shot and killed sixteen people including his mother, and wounded fifteen others, then fatally shot himself.
On This Date In 1988 “Married to the Mob”, a comedy film, was released. It was directed by Jonathan Demme and starred Matthew Modine, Alec Baldwin, Michelle Pfeiffer, Joan Cusack, and Mercedes Ruehl.
On This Date In 1991 Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting student from Australia, was stabbed to death by an angry mob in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York.
On This Date In 2003 The FDA Approved Bayer Healthcare’s Levitra (vardenafil HCI), an oral prescription medication for the treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED) in men.
On This Date In 2003 The Canal Hotel Bombing in Baghdad, Iraq killed at least 22 people, including the United Nations’ Special Representative in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello, and wounded over 100. The suicide bombing targeted the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq created just 5 days earlier (the United Nations had used the hotel as its headquarters in Iraq since 1991).
On This Date In 2004 Google went public. At $85 per share, Google raised nearly $1.7 billion, making it hands down the largest Internet IPO ever. http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/stocks/google-goes-public-16261/
On This Date In 2005 “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”, a comedy film written and directed by Judd Apatow and co-written by the film’s lead star, Steve Carell, was released. It also stars Catherine Keener, Romany Malco, Seth Rogen (who was also the co-producer) and Paul Rudd.
On This Date In 2008 “A Tale of Two Andres”, an album by bay area rappers Andre Nickatina and Mac Dre initially conceived in 2004, was released.
On This Date In 2008 “Raw Footage”, the eighth studio album by rapper Ice Cube, was released.
On This Date In 2009 A series of bombings rocked Iraq’s capital of Baghdad, killing at least 95 people and wounding 563 others. The six explosions marked the country’s deadliest day since the United States pulled its combat troops from Iraqi cities and towns two months prior. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/08/19/iraq.violence/index.html
On This Date In 2009 Florida State health officials reported 59 people had died from swine flu in Florida. The Florida Department of Health released an updated H1N1 death toll. http://www.local10.com/health/20466473/detail.html
On This Date In 2009 Hinsdale real estate developer Patrick Hughes announced his run in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, challenging U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk for the party’s banner.
On This Date In 2010 Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill formed an underwater plume of hydrocarbons the size of Manhattan, raising fears of a lingering cloud of trace chemicals in the Gulf with an unknown long-term impact.
On This Date In 2010 The last U.S. combat soldiers left Baghdad, Iraq, formally ending Operation Iraqi Freedom. The remaining 50,000 troops are viewed as trainers and logistics support to the Iraqi government. But they include special operations units, helicopter gunship crews, and other war fighters who are still going to be engaged in combat but will not be categorized as being in Iraq for that purpose. Iraq has no air force to speak of, and the United States will be providing the air support until at least 2018.
Hat tip to any included contributing sources, along with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page , http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history , http://timelines.com/
Happy Birthday Debra Paget (1933), Renee Richards (1934), Diana Muldaur (1938), Jill St. John (1940), Charles Wang (1944), Bill Clinton (1946), Gerald McRaney (1947), Tipper Gore (1948), Lillian Muller (1951), Jonathan Frakes (1952), Mary Matalin (1953), Peter Gallagher (1955), Ron Darling (1960), Bobby Hebert (1960), Tammy Bruce (1962), Joey Tempest (1963), John Stamos (1963), Kyra Sedgwick (1965), Lee Ann Womack (1966), Matthew Perry (1969), Tracie Thoms (1975), Brooke Mueller (1977), Michelle Borth (1978), Thomas Jones (1978), Erika Christensen (1982), Missy Higgins (1983), Lindsey Jacobellis (1985), and Travis Tedford (1988).
RIP Orville Wright (1871 – 1948), George Enescu (1881 – 1955), Coco Chanel (1883 – 1971), Eleanor Boardman (1898 – 1991), Colleen Moore (1899 – 1988), Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971), Gene Roddenberry (1921 – 1991), Frank McCourt (1930 – 2009), and Willie Shoemaker (1931 – 2003).
Quotes
When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. Henry Ford
Difficulties show men what they are. In case of any difficulty remember that God has pitted you against a rough antagonist that you may be a conqueror, and this cannot be without toil. Epictetus
It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity. Horace
Life’s blows cannot break a person whose spirit is warmed at the fire of enthusiasm. Norman Vincent Peale
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity. Socrates
Courtesy YouTube et al
Satellite data shows how ice moves from the interior of the Antarctic continent to the coasts. This color-coded animation shows vast movement on geologic time scales.
A never before seen look at the path of a coronal mass ejection from the solar surface to Earth grabbed by NASA's twin Sun-studying satellites, letting scientists measure the expanding super-hot gas shot out by solar eruptions.
For more information on the ongoing works of President Reagan's Foundation, please visit http://www.reaganfoundation.org.
God of our fathers, who by land and sea have ever lead us to victory, please continue your inspiring guidance in this the greatest of all conflicts. Strengthen my soul so that the weakening instinct of self-preservation, which besets all of us in battle, shall not blind me to my duty to my own manhood, to the glory of my calling, and to my responsibility to my fellow soldiers. Grant to our armed forces that disciplined valor and mutual confidence which insures success in war. Let me not mourn for the men who have died fighting, but rather let me be glad that such heroes have lived. If it be my lot to die, let me do so with courage and honor in a manner which will bring the greatest harm to the enemy, and please, oh Lord, protect and guide those I shall leave behind.
Give us the victory, Lord.
General George S. Patton
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