Day 243 - This day in legal and military history

August 31
 
NATIONAL Eat Outside Day
 
NATIONAL Trail Mix Day 

NATIONAL We Love Memoirs Day
 
NATIONAL Love Litigating Lawyers Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1887 Thomas Edison received a patent for his "Kinetoscope," and moving pictures were born
 
1888 Mary Ann Nicholls, considered to be Jack the Ripper's first victim, was found murdered in London
 
1961 A concrete wall replaces the barbed wire fence that separates East and West Germany. It will be called the Berlin Wall.
 
1965 The US Congress creates the Department of Housing & Urban Development
 
1968 A 7.3 earthquake in Iran completely destroys five villages and severely damages six others
 
1990 Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey Jr. become the first father and son to play on the same team (Seattle Mariners) simultaneously in professional baseball
 
1997 Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in a Paris car crash along with her companion Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul while fleeing paparazzi

Day 242 - This day in legal and military history

August 30
 
INTERNATIONAL Whale Shark Day 

NATIONAL Slinky Day
 
NATIONAL Frankenstein Day
 
NATIONAL Toasted Marshmallow Day
 
NATIONAL Grief Awareness Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1963 A Hot Line communications link is installed between Moscow and Washington, DC
 
1967 The US Senate confirms Thurgood Marshall as the first African-American Supreme Court justice
 
1979 The first recorded instance of a comet (Howard-Koomur-Michels) hitting the sun.  The energy released is equal to approximately 1 million hydrogen bombs.
 
1983 The Eiffel Tower welcomes its 150 millionth visitor

Day 241 - This day in legal and military history

August 29
 
NATIONAL More Herbs, Less Salt Day
 
NATIONAL Individual Rights Day
 
NATIONAL According to Hoyle Day
 
NATIONAL Chop Suey Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
70 The Temple of Jerusalem burns after a nine-month Roman siege
 
1758 The first American Indian Reservation is established, at Indian Mills, New Jersey
 
1786 Shays' rebellion, an insurrection of Massachusetts farmers against the state government, began
 
1842 The Treaty of Nanking was signed, ending the Opium Wars and ceding the island of Hong Kong to Britain
 
1957 Strom Thurmond ended the longest filibuster in US Senate history. He spoke for more than 24 hours against a civil rights bill. The bill passed.
 
1958 The Air Force Academy opened in Colorado Springs, Colorado

1966 The Beatles give their last public concert at Candlestick Park, San Francisco
 
2005 Hurricane Katrina slammed into the US Gulf Coast, destroying beachfront towns in Mississippi and Louisiana, displacing a million people, and killing more than 1,000

Day 240 - This day in legal and military history

August 28
 
NATIONAL Race Your Mouse Around the Icons Day
 
NATIONAL Crackers Over the Keyboard Day
 
NATIONAL Cherry Turnover Day
 
NATIONAL Radio Commercials Day
 
NATIONAL Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day
 
NATIONAL Bow Tie Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1922 The first commercial to be broadcast on radio aired on station WEAF in New York City. The ten minute advertisement for the Queensboro Realty Company cost $100.
 
1938 The first degree given to a ventriloquist’s dummy is awarded to Charlie McCarthy–Edgar Bergen’s wooden partner
 
1963 One of the largest demonstrations in the history of the United States, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, takes place and reaches its climax at the base of the Lincoln Memorial when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I have a dream” speech
 
2005 Hurricane Katrina reaches Category 5 strength. The Louisiana Superdome is opened as a “refuge of last resort” in New Orleans.

Day 239 - This day in legal and military history

August 27
 
GLOBAL Forgiveness Day
 
INTERNATIONAL Bat Night
 
NATIONAL Just Because Day
 
NATIONAL Tug-o-War Day

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1912 Edgar Rice Burrough‘s Tarzan of the Apes first appears in a magazine
 
2001 Intel unveiled a 2-GHz Pentium 4 chip
 
2008 Democrats nominate Barack Obama for president, the first African American nominated by a major political party for the office of President of the United States

Day 238 - This day in legal and military history

August 26
 
NATIONAL Dog Appreciation Day
 
NATIONAL Women's Equality Day
 
NATIONAL Cherry Popsicle Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1791 John Fitch is granted a United States patent for the steamboat
 
1883 The Indonesian island of Krakatoa erupts in the largest explosion recorded in history, heard 2,200 miles away in Madagascar. The resulting destruction sends volcanic ash 50 miles into the atmosphere and kills almost 36,000 people, both on the island itself and from the resulting 131-foot tidal waves that obliterate 163 villages on the shores of nearby Java and Sumatra.
 
1920 The 19th Amendment to the Constitution is officially ratified, giving women the right to vote
 
1957 The Ford Motor Company reveals the Edsel, its latest luxury car

Day 237 - This day in legal and military history

August 25
 
NATIONAL Kiss and Make Up Day
 
NATIONAL Whiskey Sour Day
 
NATIONAL Banana Split Day
 
NATIONAL Second Hand Wardrobe Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1814 British forces destroyed the Library of Congress, containing some 3,000 books
 
1830 The “Tom Thumb” steam locomotive runs its famous race with a horse-drawn car. The horse wins because the engine, which had been ahead, breaks down. 

1875 Matthew Webb becomes the first man to swim across the English Channel. It took him 21 hours and 45 minutes.
 
1916 The National Park Service is established as part of the Department of the Interior
 
1921 The United States, which never ratified the Versailles Treaty ending World War I, finally signs a peace treaty with Germany
 
1948 The House Un-American Activities Committee holds its first-ever televised congressional hearing
 
1950 President Harry Truman orders the US Army to seize control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike
 
1981 The Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn
 
1989 NASA scientists receive stunning photographs of Neptune and its moons from Voyager 2

Day 236 - This day in legal and military history

August 24
 
INTERNATIONAL Strange Music Day
 
NATIONAL Pluto Demoted Day
 
NATIONAL Vesuvius Day
 
NATIONAL Burger Day
 
NATIONAL Knife Day
 
NATIONAL Peach Pie Day
 
NATIONAL Waffle Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
79 Mount Vesuvius erupts, destroying Pompeii, Stabiae, Herculaneum and other smaller settlements
 
1814 The British set fire to the White House and the Capitol when they invaded Washington, DC during the War of 1812
 
1847 Charlotte Bronte, using the pseudonym Currer Bell, sends a manuscript of Jane Eyre to her publisher in London
 
1869 Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, New York, patents the waffle iron
 
1891 Thomas Edison files a patent for the motion picture camera
 
1894 Congress passes the first graduated income tax law, which is declared unconstitutional the next year
 
1954 Congress outlaws the Communist Party in the United States
 
1981 Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life for murdering former Beatles band member John Lennon
 
1989 Baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti bans Pete Rose from baseball for gambling
 
1992 Hurricane Andrew makes landfall in Florida as a Category 5 storm, resulting in $26.5 billion in US damages, causing 65 US deaths, and felling 70,000 acres of trees in the Everglades
 
2006 Pluto is downgraded to a dwarf planet when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines “planet”

Day 235 - This day in legal and military history

August 23
 
NATIONAL Ride the Wind Day
 
NATIONAL Sponge Cake Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1926 American film star Rudolph Valentino dies, causing world-wide hysteria and a number of suicides

1990 East and West Germany announce they will unite on October 3
 
1993 The Galileo spacecraft discovers a moon, later named Dactyl, around 243 Ida, the first known asteroid moon
 
1996 Osama bin Laden issues a message entitled “A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places”

Day 234 - This day in legal and military history

August 22
 
NATIONAL Be an Angel Day
 
NATIONAL Take Your Cat to the Vet Day
 
NATIONAL Eat a Peach Day
 
NATIONAL Tooth Fairy Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1642 Civil war in England begins as Charles I declares war on Parliament at Nottingham
 
1775 England’s King George III proclaimed the American colonies to be in a state of open rebellion
 
1864 Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention, the first codified international treaty that covered sick and wounded soldiers in the battlefield
 
1902 President Theodore Roosevelt became the first US chief executive to ride in an automobile in Hartford, Connecticut
 
1911 President William Taft vetoed statehood to Arizona, because he believed a provision in the state's constitution authorizing the recall of judges was detrimental to the independence of the judiciary. The offending clause was removed and Arizona was admitted to statehood on February 14, 1912. Afterward, the state restored the provision to its constitution.
 
1963 American Joe Walker in an X-15 test plane reaches an altitude of 106 km (66 mi)
 
1969 Hurricane Camille hits the US Gulf Coast, killing 256 and causing $1.4 billion in damages
 
1989 The first complete ring around Neptune is discovered
 
1996 The US Army began operating an incinerator in Utah to destroy 14,000 tons of chemical weapons over 7 years
 
2003 Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended for refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building’s lobby
 
2005 The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway

2007 The most runs scored by any team in modern major league baseball history is recorded as the Texas Rangers trounce the Baltimore Orioles 30-3
 
2007 The Storm botnet sends out a record 57 million e-mails in one day

Day 233 - This day in legal and military history

August 21
 
NATIONAL Senior Citizens Day
 
NATIONAL Spumoni Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1800 First public concert by the US Marine Corps Band, Washington, DC
 
1862 As the economy took a beating from the Civil War, the Treasury Department released fractional currency known as postage currency

1911 The Mona Lisa, the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, is stolen from the Louvre in Paris, where it had hung for more than 100 years. It is recovered in 1913.
 
1959 Hawaii is admitted into the Union as the 50th state
 
1993 NASA engineers lost contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft on a $980 million mission. Its fate remains unknown.
 
2017 Total eclipse of the sun 

Day 232 - This day in legal and military history

August 20
 
WORLD Mosquito Day 

NATIONAL Radio Day
 
NATIONAL Chocolate Pecan Pie Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1619 The first group of twenty Africans is brought to Jamestown, Virginia as slaves
 
1667 John Milton publishes Paradise Lost, an epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve
 
1882 Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" debuts in Moscow

1913 700 feet above Buc, France, parachutist Adolphe Pegoud becomes the first person to jump from an airplane and land safely
 
1940 Radar is used for the first time, by the British during the Battle of Britain. Also on this day, in a radio broadcast, Winston Churchill makes his famous homage to the Royal Air Force: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
 
1977 The United States launched Voyager 2, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.  It is now approximately 7 billion miles from earth and still going.
 
1980 Italian Reinhold Messner made the first successful solo ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen
 
1982 US Marines land in Beirut
 
1998 The Supreme Court of Canada rules Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government’s approval
 
2000 Tiger Woods won the PGA Championship, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year

Day 231 - This day in legal and military history

August 19
 
INTERNATIONAL Geocaching Day
 
INTERNATIONAL Orangutan Day
 
INTERNATIONAL Homeless Animals Day
 
NATIONAL Aviation Day
 
NATIONAL Potato Day
 
NATIONAL Photography Day
 
NATIONAL Break the Monotony Day
 
NATIONAL Soft Ice Cream Day
 
NATIONAL Honey Bee Awareness Day [third Saturday in August]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1692 Five women are hanged in Salem, Massachusetts after being convicted of the crime of witchcraft. Fourteen more people are executed that year and 150 others are imprisoned.
 
1812 The USS Constitution earns the nickname Old Ironsides during the battle off Nova Scotia that saw her defeat the HMS Guerriere
 
1919 “The Marines’ Hymn” was registered with the US Copyright Office
Click here for Marines' Hymn by USMC band 

1934 Germans voted to make Adolf Hitler Fuhrer
 
1950 Edith Sampson becomes the first African-American representative to the United Nations
 
2004 Google Inc. stock begins selling on the Nasdaq Stock Market, with an initial price of $85 and an ending price for the day of $100.34 with more than 22 million shares traded
 
2005 A supercell weather pattern hits Toronto, with a series of thunderstorms spawning several tornadoes and causing flash floods in Southern Ontario. Losses exceed $500 million Canadian dollars, the highest ever in the province.

Day 230 - This day in legal and military history

August 18
 
NATIONAL Bad Poetry Day  
Click here for Vogon Poetry as read by Marvin 

NATIONAL Men's Grooming Day
 
NATIONAL Mail Order Catalog Day
 
NATIONAL Ice Cream Pie Day
 
NATIONAL Fajita Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1587 In the Roanoke Island (North Carolina) colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare become parents of a baby girl who they name Virginia, the first English child born in what would become the United States
 
1590 John White, the leader of the 117 colonists on Roanoke Island, returns from a trip to England to find the settlement deserted. No trace of the settlers is ever found.
 
1894 Congress established the Bureau of Immigration, forerunner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service
 
1920 Tennessee becomes the 36th state to ratify the nineteenth amendment granting women’s suffrage, completing the three-quarters necessary to put the amendment into effect
 
1939 The film The Wizard of Oz opens in New York City
 
1958 Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita was published
 
1973 Hank Aaron makes his 1,378th extra-base hit, surpassing Stan Musial’s record
 
1982 Pete Rose sets a record with his 13,941st plate appearance
 
2011 Gold hits a record price of $1,826 per ounce

Day 229 - This day in legal and military history

August 17
 
NATIONAL Thrift Shop Day
 
NATIONAL Vanilla Custard Day
 
NATIONAL Get Smart About Credit Day
 
NATIONAL Black Cat Appreciation Day
 
NATIONAL I Love My Feet Day 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1969 Hurricane Camille devastated the Gulf Coast, killing 248 people
 
1978 Three Americans complete the first crossing of the Atlantic in a balloon
 
1982 The first Compact Discs (CDs) are released to the public in Germany
 
1998 President Bill Clinton admits to the American public that he had affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky
 
1999 A 7.4-magnitude earthquake near Izmit, Turkey kills over 17,000 and injures nearly 45,000

Day 228 - This day in legal and military history

August 16
 
WORLD Bratwurst Day
 
NATIONAL Wave at Surveillance Cameras Day
 
NATIONAL Tell a Joke Day
 
NATIONAL Rollercoaster Day 

NATIONAL Rum Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1691 Yorktown, Virginia, was founded
 
1777 France declares a state of bankruptcy
 
1858 US President James Buchanan and Britain’s Queen Victoria exchange messages inaugurating the first transatlantic telegraph line
 
1861 President Lincoln prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding states of the Confederacy
 
1988 IBM introduces artificial intelligence software

Day 227 - This day in legal and military history

August 15
 
NATIONAL Relaxation Day
 
NATIONAL Lemon Meringue Pie Day
 
NATIONAL Pythagorean Theorem Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1057 Macbeth, king of Scotland, was killed by Malcolm Canmore
 
1908 First Navy post offices established in Navy ships
 
1911 Proctor & Gamble Company introduced Crisco vegetable shortening
 
1914 The Panama Canal opens to traffic
 
1939 The Wizard of Oz premiered in Hollywood
 
1945 Gasoline and fuel oil rationing for World War II ends in the United States
 
1947 Britain grants independence to India and Pakistan
 
1969 Over 400,000 young people attend a weekend of rock music at Woodstock, New York

1971 US President Richard Nixon announces a 90-day freeze on wages and prices in an attempt to halt rapid inflation
 
2001 Astronomers announce the first solar system discovered outside our own - two planets had been found orbiting a star in the Big Dipper
 
2007 An earthquake of 8.0 magnitude kills over 500 and injures more than 1,000 in Peru

Day 226 - This day in legal and military history

August 14
 
NATIONAL V-J Day [commonly celebrated on September 2 when Japan formally surrendered]
 
NATIONAL Creamsicle Day
 
NATIONAL Social Security Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1457 The first book ever printed is published by a German astrologer named Faust. He is thrown in jail while trying to sell books in Paris. Authorities concluded that all the identical books meant Faust had dealt with the devil.
 
1935 The Social Security Act became law
 
1945 Japan announces its unconditional surrender in World War II [Victory over Japan Day]
 
1947 Pakistan becomes an independent country
 
1974 Congress authorized US citizens to own gold
 
1987 Mark McGwire hits his 49th home run of the season, setting the major league home run record for a rookie
 
1994 Space telescope Hubble photographed Uranus with rings
 
1995 Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet at South Carolina’s state military college, The Citadel.  Her admission is met with intense resistance, including death threats, and she left the school a week later.
 
2001 Helios, a remote-controlled, solar powered NASA plane, reached a record 96,500 feet

2003 The largest blackout in North American history hit the northeast, affecting 10 million people in Ontario, Canada and 45 million people in 8 US states

Day 225 - This day in legal and military history

August 13
 
INTERNATIONAL Left Hander's Day
 
NATIONAL Filet Mignon Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1868 A series of earthquakes killed 25,000 in Peru and Ecuador
 
1889 The first coin-operated telephone is patented by William Gray
 
1942 Disney's Bambi opened at Radio City Music Hall in New York City
 
1961 The erection of the Berlin Wall begins

1969 The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine to enjoy a ticker tape parade in New York City
 
1993 The US Court of Appeals rules Congress must save all emails
 
2008 US swimmer Michael Phelps won his 11th career gold medal, becoming the first athlete in Olympic history to do so

Day 224 - This day in legal and military history

August 12
 
WORLD Elephant Day
 
INTERNATIONAL Youth Day
 
NATIONAL Middle Child Day
 
NATIONAL Vinyl Record Day
 
NATIONAL Bowling Day [second Saturday in August]
 
NATIONAL Garage Sale Day [second Saturday in August]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1851 Issac Singer patented the sewing machine
 
1865 British surgeon Joseph Lister became the first doctor to use an antiseptic during surgery
 
1896 Gold is discovered near Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada
 
1898 Hawaii was formally annexed to the United States
 
1908 Henry Ford‘s first Model T rolls off the assembly line

1935 President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Social Security Bill
 
1981 Computer giant IBM introduces its first personal computer, running PC-DOS 1.0
 
1992 The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is concluded between the United States, Canada and Mexico, creating the world’s wealthiest trade bloc

Day 223 - This day in legal and military history

August 11
 
NATIONAL Presidential Joke Day
 
NATIONAL Son and Daughter Day
 
NATIONAL Play in the Sand Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1906 In France, Eugene Lauste receives the first patent for a talking film
 
1909 The SOS distress signal was first used by an American ship, the Arapahoe, off Cape Hatteras, NC
 
1934 The first inmates arrived at the federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay

1942 Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones and Wi-Fi
 
1965 A clash between the California Highway Patrol and two black youths during a routine traffic stop sets off six days of rioting in the Watts area of Los Angeles
 
1972 The last US ground forces withdraw from Vietnam
 
1984 Carl Lewis wins four Olympic gold medals, tying the record Jesse Owens set in 1936

Day 222 - This day in legal and military history

August 10
 
WORLD Lion Day
 
NATIONAL Lazy Day
 
NATIONAL S'mores Day
 
NATIONAL Skyscraper Appreciation Day 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1821 Missouri enters the Union as the 24th state – and the first located entirely west of the Mississippi River
 
1846 The Smithsonian Institution is established in Washington through the bequest of James Smithson
 
1944 US forces seized Guam from Japan
 
1948 Candid Camera with Allen Funt debuted on television
 
1949 The National Military Establishment is renamed the Department of Defense
 
1993 Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as the second female U.S. Supreme Court justice
 
1995 Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were charged with eleven counts in the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh was later convicted of murder and was executed on June 11, 2001, at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Nichols was convicted of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter.
 
1997 The last British troops leave Hong Kong. After 156 years of British rule, the island is returned to China.
 
2006 All toiletries are banned from commercial airplanes after Scotland Yard disrupts a a major terrorist plot involving liquid explosives. After a few weeks, the toiletries ban was modified

Day 221 - This day in legal and military history

August 9
 
NATIONAL Book Lovers Day
 
NATIONAL Melon Day
 
NATIONAL Rice Pudding Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1483 Pope Sixtus IV celebrates the first mass in the Sistine Chapel, which is named in his honor
 
1854 Henry David Thoreau's Walden, recounting his experiment in solitary life on the shores of Massachusetts' Walden Pond, was published
 
1859 The escalator is patented. The first working escalator, manufactured by the Otis Elevator Company, appeared in 1900
 
1892 Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph
 
1910 The first complete, self-contained electric washing machine is patented
 
1930 The first appearance of the animated character Betty Boop in “Dizzy Dishes”
 
1936 Jesse Owens became the first American to win four gold medals in one Olympics
 
1944 The fictional character Smokey Bear (“Only you can prevent forest fires”) is created by the US Forest Service and the Ad Council

1945 The B-29 bomber Bock’s Car drops a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan
 
1965 Singapore is expelled from Malaysia following economic disagreements and racial tensions, and becomes an independent republic
 
1974 Gerald Ford is sworn in as president of the United States after the resignation of President Richard Nixon
 
2001 USMC Commandant James L. Jones promotes Pfc Gomer Pyle to honorary lance corporal

Day 220 - This day in legal and military history

August 8
 
INTERNATIONAL Cat Day
 
NATIONAL Bowling Day 

NATIONAL Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day
 
NATIONAL Odie Day
 
NATIONAL Happiness Happens Day
 
NATIONAL Dollar Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1676 Great Fire of Boston destroys 160 buildings
 
1786 The US Congress adopted the silver dollar and decimal system of money
 
1854 Smith and Wesson patented metal bullet cartridges
 
1876 Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph
 
1890 Daughters of American Revolution (DAR) is organized
 
1899 The first household refrigerating machine is patented
 
1908 The Wright Brothers made their first public flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France
 
1945 The Soviet Union declares war on Japan
 
1963 England’s “Great Train Robbery” - 2.6 million pounds ($7.3 million) is stolen
 
1969 Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski, and four others were murdered by members of Charles Manson's "family"
 
1972 Navy women authorized for sea duty as regular ship’s company
 
1974 President Richard Nixon resigns from the presidency as a result of the Watergate scandal
 
1978 Pioneer-Venus 2 is launched to probe the atmosphere of Venus
 
1988 Cease fire ends the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)
 
2003 A US federal judge ruled that 264,000 square miles of submerged lands in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth, belong to the United States
 
2007 An EF2 tornado hits Brooklyn, New York, the first in that borough since 1889

Day 219 - This day in legal and military history

August 7
 
NATIONAL Lighthouse Day
 
NATIONAL Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day
 
NATIONAL Purple Heart Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1782 General George Washington authorizes the award of the Badge for Military Merit (the Purple Heart), for soldiers wounded in combat
 
1789 Congress established the US War Department
 
1794 In the summer of 1794, irate farmers in Pennsylvania rose up in the Whiskey Rebellion against the federal tax on liquor and stills
 
1888 Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia receives a patent for the revolving door
 
1922 The Irish Republican Army cuts the cable link between the United States and Europe at Waterville landing station
 
1934 In Washington, the US Court of Appeals rules that the government can neither confiscate nor ban James Joyce’s novel Ulysses
 
1947 The wooden raft Kon-Tiki, which carried Thor Heyerdahl and five companions more than 4,000 miles, crashed into a reef in the Pacific 

1953 SSgt Barbara Barnwell was the first woman Marine awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism, for saving a soldier from drowning
 
1959 The United States launched Explorer 6, which sent back a picture of Earth
 
1964 Congress overwhelmingly passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing the president to use unlimited military force to prevent attacks on US forces and to oppose Communist aggression in Southeast Asia
 
1976 The US Viking 2 spacecraft goes into orbit around Mars
 
1981 The Washington DC Star ceases publication after 128 years
 
1984 Japan defeats the United States to win the Olympic Gold in baseball
 
1987 Lynne Cox becomes the first person to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union, making the 2.7 mile trip through the frigid waters of the Bering Strait
 
1990 Operation Desert Shield begins as US troops deploy to Saudi Arabia to discourage Iraq’s Saddam Hussein from invading that country as he had Kuwait
 
1998 A massive truck bomb explodes outside the US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and minutes later, another truck bomb detonated outside the US embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
 
2007 Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks Hank Aaron’s record with his 756th home run

Day 218 - This day in legal and military history

August 6
 
NATIONAL Wiggle Your Toes Day
 
NATIONAL Farmworker Appreciation Day
 
NATIONAL Doll Day
 
NATIONAL Root Beer Float Day
 
NATIONAL Fresh Breath Day
 
NATIONAL Friendship Day [first Sunday in August]
 
NATIONAL Sisters Day [first Sunday in August]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1787 In Philadelphia, delegates to the Constitutional Convention begin debating the first complete draft of the proposed Constitution of the United States
 
1945 Paul Tibbets, the commander of Enola Gay, drops the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan

1962 Jamaica becomes independent, after 300 years of British rule
 
1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, outlawing the literacy test for voting eligibility in the South
 
1972 Atlanta Braves’ right fielder Hank Aaron hits his 660th and 661st home runs, setting the Major League record for most home runs by a player for a single franchise
 
1991 Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web, which debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet
 
2012 New Zealand’s Mount Tongariro erupts for the first time since 1897

Day 217 - This day in legal and military history

August 5
 
NATIONAL Clown Day
 
NATIONAL Underwear Day
 
NATIONAL Work Like a Dog Day
 
NATIONAL Sand Castle Day

NATIONAL Oyster Day
 
NATIONAL Mustard Day [first Saturday in August]
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1858 The first transatlantic cable is completed
 
1861 US Army prohibits flogging
 
1861 US levies the first federal income tax; 3% on incomes over $800
 
1884 The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid on Bedloe's Island
 
1914 The first electric traffic signal lights are installed in Cleveland, Ohio
 
1969 The US space probe Mariner 7 flew by Mars, sending back photographs and scientific data
 
1981 President Ronald Reagan fires 11,500 striking air traffic controllers
 
1986 US Senate voted for the Strategic Defense Initiative project, better known as Star Wars
 
1992 Four police officers are indicted on civil rights charges in the beating of Rodney King
 
2012 The plutonium-powered rover Curiosity successfully lands on Mars

Day 216 - This day in legal and military history

August 4
 
INTERNATIONAL Beer Day
 
NATIONAL Coast Guard Day 

NATIONAL Chocolate Chip Cookie Day
 
NATIONAL Assistance Dog Day
 
NATIONAL Single Working Women's Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1790 The Revenue Cutter service, the parent service of the US Navy and Coast Guard, is organized
 
1884 Thomas Stevens became the first person to bicycle across the United States
 
1914 Germany invades Belgium causing Great Britain to declare war on Germany
 
1916 US agrees to buy the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million
 
1944 Anne Frank and her family are betrayed to the Nazis
 
1949 Congress approved Public Law 207, establishing the Coast Guard as a branch of the US Armed Forces
 
1988 The US Senate votes to give each Japanese-American who was interned during WWII $20,000 compensation and an apology

Day 215 - This day in legal and military history

August 3
 
NATIONAL Watermelon Day 

NATIONAL Clean Your Floors Day
 
NATIONAL White Wine Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1492 Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his voyage to the new world

1610 Henry Hudson of England discovers a great bay on the east coast of Canada and names it for himself
 
1914 Germany declares war on France
 
1949 The National Basketball Association was formed
 
1958 The first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, passes under the North Pole
 
1972 Former Beatle Paul McCartney announces formation of his new group, Wings 

1980 Closing ceremonies were held in Moscow for the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, which had been boycotted by dozens of countries, including the United States
 
1987 The Iran-Contra congressional hearings ended, with none of the 29 witnesses tying President Reagan directly to the diversion of arms-sales profits to Nicaraguan rebels
 
2004 Statue of Liberty’s pedestal reopens to visitors after being closed following the 9/11 terrorist attacks

Day 214 - This day in legal and military history

August 2
 
NATIONAL Ice Cream Sandwich Day 

NATIONAL Coloring Book Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1776 The Continental Congress, having decided unanimously on the Declaration of Independence, affixes the signatures of the other delegates to the document
 
1876 Wild Bill Hickok is shot while playing poker
 
1887 Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire
 
1909 The first Lincoln pennies were minted
 
1990 Iraqi forces invade neighboring Kuwait, beginning the First Gulf War, "Desert Shield/Desert Storm"

Day 213 - This day in legal and military history

August 1
 
WORLD Lung Cancer Day
 
WORLD Wide Web Day
 
INTERNATIONAL Child Free Day
 
NATIONAL Girlfriends Day
 
NATIONAL Mountain Climbing Day

Looking north at Mount Everest

NATIONAL Raspberry Cream Pie Day
 
NATIONAL Respect for Parents Day
 

Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 
1790 The first US Census was completed, showing a population of 3,939,326 in 16 states and the Ohio territory with 697,624 slaves. Virginia was the most populous state with 747,610 inhabitants.
 
1834 Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire
 
1876 Colorado was admitted to the US as the 38th state
 
1893 A machine for making shredded wheat breakfast cereal is patented
 
1914 Germany declares war on Russia
 
1936 Hitler opens the Berlin Olympics, the 11th modern games, initiating the now routine "Olympic Torch" ceremony
 
1939 Synthetic vitamin K is produced for the first time
 
1946 President Truman signed the congressional acts that established the Atomic Energy Commission and the Fulbright Scholarship program
 
1950 Control of Guam transferred from the Navy to the Department of Interior
 
1957 US and Canada create North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)
 
1960 Singer Chubby Checker releases “The Twist,” creating a new dance craze. The song had been released by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters the previous year but got little attention.
 
1961 East Germany limits traffic to West Berlin, Cold War intensifies
 
1981 MTV made its debut at 12:01 AM. The first video shown was Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles.
 
1988 Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh begins his national radio show