TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Sunday, Aug. 19, the 231st day of 2018. There are 134 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On August 19, 2004, Google began trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, ending the day up $15.34 at $100.34.
On this date:
In A.D. 14, Caesar Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, died at age 76 after a reign lasting four decades; he was succeeded by his stepson Tiberius.
In 1812, the USS Constitution defeated the British frigate HMS Guerriere off Nova Scotia during the War of 1812, earning the nickname “Old Ironsides.”
In 1814, during the War of 1812, British forces landed at Benedict, Maryland, with the objective of capturing Washington, D.C.
In 1909, the first automobile races were run at the just-opened Indianapolis Motor Speedway; the winner of the first event was auto engineer Louis Schwitzer, who drove a Stoddard-Dayton touring car twice around the 2.5-mile track at an average speed of 57.4 mph.
In 1934, a plebiscite in Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler.
In 1936, the first of a series of show trials orchestrated by Soviet leader Josef Stalin began in Moscow as 16 defendants faced charges of conspiring against the government (all were convicted and executed).
In 1942, during World War II, about 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a disastrous raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France, suffering more than 50-percent casualties.
In 1951, the owner of the St. Louis Browns, Bill Veeck (vehk), sent in Eddie Gaedel, a 3-foot-7 player with dwarfism, to pinch-hit in a game against Detroit. (In his only major league at-bat, Gaedel walked on four pitches and was replaced at first base by a pinch-runner.)
In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford won the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Kansas City.
In 1980, 301 people aboard a Saudi Arabian L-1011 died as the jetliner made a fiery emergency return to the Riyadh airport.
In 1987, a gun collector ran through Hungerford, England, 60 miles west of London, killing 16 people, including his mother, before turning his gun on himself.
In 2003, a suicide truck bomb struck U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22, including the top U.N. envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello (SUR’jee-oh vee-EHR’-uh duh MEHL’-oh). A suicide bombing of a bus in Jerusalem killed 22 people.
Ten years ago: Tropical Storm Fay rolled ashore in Florida short of hurricane strength but mysteriously gained speed as it headed over land. Heavily armed insurgents in Afghanistan killed 10 French soldiers in a mountain ambush and then sent a squad of suicide bombers in a failed assault on a U.S. base near the Pakistan border. Russia and Georgia exchanged prisoners captured during their brief war. American Shawn Johnson won a gold medal on the balance beam at the Beijing games.
Five years ago: Olympian runner Oscar Pistorius was indicted in Pretoria, South Africa, on charges of murder and illegal possession of ammunition for the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his home on Valentine’s Day 2013; Pistorius maintained he’d mistaken her for an intruder. (He was initially convicted of manslaughter, but that was overturned and replaced with a murder conviction by South Africa’s Supreme Court. Pistorius is serving a 13-year prison sentence.) A train ran over a group of Hindu pilgrims at a crowded station in eastern India, killing at least 37 people.
One year ago: Thousands of demonstrators chanting anti-Nazi slogans and denouncing white nationalism upstaged a small group of conservatives in Boston who had gathered for a “free speech rally.” In Dallas, police on horseback broke up a scuffle at a cemetery between people rallying against white supremacy and supporters of Confederate monuments. Hundreds marched from downtown Atlanta to the home of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in protest of white supremacists and other hate groups. Duke University removed a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee after it was vandalized. Comedian and activist Dick Gregory, who broke racial barriers in the 1960s and later spread messages of social justice and nutritional health, died in Washington, D.C., at the age of 84.
Thought for Today: “Well done is quickly done.”— Caesar Augustus, Roman emperor (63 B.C.-A.D. 14).