TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS MONDAY, AUG. 27,
the 239th day of 2018. There are 126 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in Paris, outlawing war and providing for the peaceful settlement of disputes.
In 1776, the Battle of Long Island began during the Revolutionary War when British troops attacked American forces, who were forced to retreat two days later.
In 1859, Edwin L. Drake drilled the first successful oil well in the United States, at Titusville, Pa.
In 1883, the island volcano Krakatoa erupted with a series of cataclysmic explosions; the resulting tidal waves in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait claimed some 36,000 lives in Java and Sumatra.
In 1962, the United States launched the Mariner 2 space probe, which flew past Venus in December 1962.
In 1967, Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, was found dead in his London flat from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills; he was 32.
In 1975, Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia’s 3,000-year-old monarchy, died in Addis Ababa at age 83 almost a year after being overthrown.
In 1979, British war hero Lord Louis Mountbatten and three other people, including his 14-year-old grandson Nicholas, were killed off the coast of Ireland in a boat explosion claimed by the Irish Republican Army.
In 1989, the first U.S. commercial satellite rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. — a Delta booster carrying a British communications satellite, the Marcopolo 1.
In 2006, a Comair CRJ-100 crashed after trying to take off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky., killing 49 people. The co-pilot was the sole survivor.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Author Lady Antonia Fraser is 86. Actor Tommy Sands and bluegrass singer-musician J.D. Crowe are 81. Musician Daryl Dragon is 76. Actress Tuesday Weld is 75. Actor G.W. Bailey and rock singermusician Tim Bogert are 74. Actress Marianne Sagebrecht is 73. Country musician Jeff Cook is 69. Actor Paul Reubens is 66. Rock musician Alex Lifeson (Rush) and actor Peter Stormare are 65. Actress Diana Scarwid is 63. Rock musician Glen Matlock (The Sex Pistols) is 62. Golfer Bernhard Langer is 61. Country singer Jeffrey Steele, gospel singer Yolanda Adams and movie director Tom Ford (Film: “Nocturnal Animals”) are 57. Country musician Matthew Basford (Yankee Grey) and writer-producer Dean Devlin are 56. Rock musician Mike Johnson is 53. Country singer Colt Ford and actress Chandra Wilson are 49. Rock musician Tony Kanal (No Doubt) is 48. Actress Sarah Chalke and actor RonReaco Lee are 42. Actress-singer Demetria McKinney is 40. Actors Aaron Paul and Shaun Weiss, and rock musician Jon Siebels (Eve 6) are 39. Contemporary Christian musician Megan Garrett (Casting Crowns) and actor Kyle Lowder are 38. Actor Patrick J. Adams and actress Karla Mosley are 37. Actress Amanda Fuller is 34. Singer Mario is 32. Actress Alexa PenaVega is 30. Actor Ellar Coltrane is 24. Actress Savannah Paige Rae is 15.