TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

August 21, 1831

Nat Turner launched a violent slave rebellion in Virginia resulting in the deaths of at least 55 whites. ALSO ON THIS DATE

1609

Galileo Galilei demonstrated his new telescope to a group of officials atop the Campanile in Venice.

1858

The first of seven debates between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place.

1911

Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris.

1912

The Boy Scouts of America named its first Eagle Scout, Arthur Rose Eldred of Troop 1 in Rockville Centre, N.Y.

1959

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order making Hawaii the 50th state.

1987

Sgt. Clayton Lonetree, the first Marine court-martialed for spying, was convicted in Quantico, Virginia, of passing secrets to the KGB.

1991

The hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin.

2017

Americans witnessed their first full-blown coast-tocoast solar eclipse since World War I, with eclipsewatchers gathering along a path of totality extending 2,600 miles across the continent from Oregon to South Carolina.