TODAY IN HISTORY
On Aug. 11, 1965, rioting and looting that claimed 34 lives broke out in the predominantly Black Watts section of Los Angeles.
Also on this date
In 1934,
the first federal prisoners arrived at Alcatraz Island (a former military prison) in San Francisco Bay.
In 1949,
President Harry S. Truman nominated General Omar N. Bradley to become the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In 1952,
Hussein bin Talal was proclaimed King of Jordan, beginning a reign lasting nearly 47 years.
In 1960,
the African country of Chad became independent of France.
In 1964,
the Beatles movie “A Hard Day’s Night” had its U.S. premiere in New York.
In 1991,
Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon released two Western captives: Edward Tracy, an American held nearly five years, and Jerome Leyraud, a Frenchman who’d been abducted by a rival group three days earlier.
In 1992,
the Mall of America, the nation’s largest shopping-entertainment center, opened in Bloomington, Minnesota.
In 2012,
Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney announced his choice of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to be his running mate.
In 2014,
Academy Award-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams, 63, died in Tiburon, California, a suicide.
In 2017,
a federal judge ordered Charlottesville, Virginia, to allow a weekend rally of white nationalists and other extremists to take place at its originally planned location downtown. (Violence erupted at the rally, and a woman was killed when a man plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters.)
Ten years ago:
Dan Rostenkowski, a former Illinois congressman who’d wielded enormous power on Capitol Hill for more than 30 years, died at his Wisconsin summer home at age 82.
Five years ago:
Federal authorities charged that an international web of hackers and traders had made $100 million on Wall Street by stealing a look at corporate press releases before they went out and then trading on that information ahead of the pack.
One year ago:
Two Americans used their medal-winning moments at the Pan American Games in Peru to draw attention to social issues back home; fencer Race Imboden took a knee, and hammer thrower Gwen Berry raised her fist.