TODAY IN HISTORY
On Aug. 27, 1963, author, journalist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois died in Accra, Ghana, at age 95.
Also on this date
In 1858, the second debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas took place in Freeport, Ill.
In 1949, a violent white mob prevented an outdoor concert headlined by Paul Robeson from taking place near Peekskill, New York. (The concert was held eight days later.)
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, Florida — a Delta booster carrying a British communications satellite, the Marcopolo 1.
In 1998, two suspects in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya were brought to the United States to face charges. (Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-‘Owhali and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh were convicted in 2001 of conspiring to carry out the bombing; both were sentenced to life in prison.)
In 2005, coastal residents jammed freeways and gas stations as they rushed to get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina, which was headed toward New Orleans.
In 2008, Barack Obama was nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
In 2009, Jaycee Lee Dugard, kidnapped when she was 11, was reunited with her mother 18 years after her abduction in South Lake Tahoe, California.
Ten years ago: Cuba issued a pair of surprising free market decrees, allowing foreign investors to lease government land for at least 99 years and loosening state controls on commerce to let citizens grow and sell their own fruits and vegetables.
Five years ago: Visiting residents on tidy porch stoops and sampling food at a corner restaurant, President Barack Obama held out the people of New Orleans as an extraordinary example of renewal and resilience 10 years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
One year ago: Sixteen women who said they had been sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein poured out their anger in court, as a judge gave them a chance to testify even though Epstein had died behind bars; the hearing was held on a normally routine request to throw out the indictment because of the defendant’s death.