TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Sunday, Aug. 27, the 239th day of 2017. There are 126 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On August 27, 1967, Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, was found dead in his London flat from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills; he was 32.

On this date:

In 1776, the Battle of Long Island began during the Revolutionary War as British troops attacked American forces who ended up being forced to retreat two days later.

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 1908, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, was born near Stonewall, Texas.

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 2008, Barack Obama was nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Today’s Birthdays: Author Lady Antonia Fraser is 85. Bluegrass singer-musician J.D. Crowe is 80. Country musician Jeff Cook is 68. Rock musician Glen Matlock (The Sex Pistols) is 61. Actress Karla Mosley is 36. Singer Mario is 31.

Thought for Today: “In order to have wisdom we must have ignorance.”—Theodore Dreiser, American author (born this date in 1871, died 1945).