TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, Aug. 15, the 227th day of 2023.
Today’s highlight in history
On Aug. 15, 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York.
On this date
In 1057, Macbeth, King of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain.
In 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the island of Corsica.
In 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened as the American cargo ship SS Ancon crossed the just-completed waterway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
In 1935, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory.
In 1944, Allied forces landed in southern France in Operation Dragoon.
In 1945, in a prerecorded radio address, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced that Japan had accepted terms of surrender for ending World War II.
In 1947, India became independent after some 200 years of British rule.
In 1961, as workers began constructing a Berlin Wall made of concrete, East German soldier Conrad Schumann leaped to freedom over a tangle of barbed wire.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon announced a 90-day freeze on wages, prices and rents. In 2003, bouncing back from the largest blackout in U.S. history, cities from the Midwest to Manhattan restored power to millions of people.
Today’s birthdays
Actor Jim Dale is 88. Actor Pat Priest is 87. Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is 85. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, is 85. Musician Pete York is 81. Journalist Linda Ellerbee is 79. Singermusician Tom Johnston (The Doobie Brothers) is 75. Britain’s Princess Anne is 73. Actor Tess Harper is 73. Actor Larry Mathews is 68. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is 60. Philanthropist Melinda Gates is 59. Actor Debra Messing is 55. Actor Anthony Anderson is 53. Actor Ben Affleck is 51. Actor Natasha Henstridge is 49. Musician Tim Foreman (Switchfoot) is 45. Singer Joe Jonas is 34. Actor Jennifer Lawrence is 33.