TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, Aug. 23, the 235th day of 2019. There are 130 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On August 23, 1927, amid worldwide protests, Italianborn anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Boston for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery. (On the 50th anniversary of their executions, then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted.)
On this date:
■ In 1775, Britain’s King George III proclaimed the American colonies to be in a state of “open and avowed rebellion.”
■ In 1913, Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid statue, inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen story, was unveiled in the harbor of the Danish capital.
■ In 1914, Japan declared war against Germany in World War I.
■ In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in Moscow.
■ In 1960, Broadway librettist Oscar Hammerstein (HAM’-ur-STYN’) II, 65, died in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
■ In 1973, a bank robbery-turned-hostage-taking began in Stockholm, Sweden; the four hostages ended up empathizing with their captors, a psychological condition now referred to as “Stockholm Syndrome.”
■ In 1979, Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov (GUD’u-nawf) defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York.
■ In 1982, Lebanon’s parliament elected Christian militia leader Bashir Gemayel president. (However, Gemayel was assassinated some three weeks later.)
■ In 1999, The Dow Jones industrial average soared 199.15 to a then-record of 11,299.76.
■ In 2008, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama introduced his choice of running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, before a crowd outside the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill.
■ In 2003, Former priest John Geoghan (GAY’-gun), the convicted child molester whose prosecution sparked the sex abuse scandal that shook the Roman Catholic Church nationwide, died after another inmate attacked him in a Massachusetts prison.
■ In 2013, a military jury convicted Maj. Nidal Hasan in the deadly 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, that claimed 13 lives; the Army psychiatrist was later sentenced to death. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the U.S. soldier who’d massacred 16 Afghan civilians, was sentenced at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, to life in prison with no chance of parole.
Ten years ago: Reality TV contestant Ryan Jenkins, suspected of killing his wife, former model Jasmine Fiore (fee-OR’-ee), was found hanging in a motel in Hope, British Columbia, Canada, an apparent suicide. Eric Bruntlett turned an unassisted triple play to finish Philadelphia’s wild 9-7 victory over the New York Mets. Stefania Fernandez, Miss Venezuela, won the 2009 Miss Universe pageant in the Bahamas; she succeeded fellow Venezuelan Dayana Mendoza, the previous year’s winner.
Thought for Today: “All life is a concatenation of ephemeralities.” — Alfred E. Kahn, American economist (19172010).