DAY IN HISTORY

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Today is the 232nd day of 2020 and the 61st day of summer.

TODAY’S HISTORY: In 1839, details of Louis Daguerre’s pioneering photographic process were first released in Paris.

In 1934, a German plebiscite voted to grant then-chancellor Adolf Hitler the additional office of president.

In 1960, captured American U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers was sentenced in Moscow to three years imprisonment and seven years of hard labor for espionage.

In 2010, Operation Iraqi Freedom officially ended as the last U.S. combat troops crossed the border into Kuwait.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:

Orville Wright (18711948), aviation pioneer; Coco Chanel (1883-1971), fashion designer; Ogden Nash (1902-1971), poet/ author; Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990), publisher; Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991), Star Trek creator; Bill Shoemaker (1931-2003), jockey; Bill Clinton (1946- ), 42nd U.S. president; Mary Matalin (1953- ), political consultant; John Stamos (1963), actor; Kyra Sedgwick (1965- ), actress; Nate Dogg (1969-2011), rapper; Matthew Perry (1969- ), actor; Clay Walker (1969), singer-songwriter; Veronica Roth (1988- ), author.

TODAY’S FACT: Gene Roddenberry was the first television writer to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

TODAY’S SPORTS: In 1909, Austrian engineer Louis Schwitzer won the first race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with an average speed of 57.4 mph. Two drivers, two mechanics and two spectators died in related accidents. TODAY’S QUOTE: “I cannot help mentioning that the door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.” — Ogden Nash, “Seeing Eye to Eye Is Believing”

TODAY’S NUMBER: 11 — Triple Crown horse races won by thoroughbred jockey Bill Shoemaker. He never won all three jewels in the Triple Crown in the same year.

TODAY’S MOON: Between new moon (Aug. 18) and first quarter moon (Aug. 25).