Today in history
Today is Tuesday, Aug. 22, the 234th day of 2017. There are 131 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On August 22, 1851, the schooner America outraced more than a dozen British vessels off the English coast to win a trophy that came to be known as the America’s Cup.
On this date
In 1485, England’s King Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, effectively ending the War of the Roses.
In 1787, inventor John Fitch demonstrated his steamboat on the Delaware River to delegates from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
In 1846, Gen. Stephen W. Kearny proclaimed all of New Mexico a territory of the United States.
In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, which remained under Japanese control until the end of World War II.
In 1922, Irish revolutionary Michael Collins was shot to death, apparently by Irish Republican Army members opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty that Collins had co-signed.
In 1932, the British Broadcasting Corp. conducted its first experimental television broadcast, using a 30-line mechanical system.
In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon were nominated for second terms in office by the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.
In 1968, Pope Paul VI arrived in Bogota, Colombia, for the start of the first papal visit to South America.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon was nominated for a second term of office by the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. John Wojtowicz (WAHT’-uh-witz) and Salvatore Naturile took seven employees hostage at a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Brooklyn, New York, during a botched robbery; the siege, which ended with Wojtowicz’s arrest and Naturile’s killing by the FBI, inspired the 1975 movie “Dog Day Afternoon.”
In 1985, 55 people died when fire broke out aboard a British Airtours charter jet on a runway at Manchester Airport in England.
In 1986, Kerr-McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million, settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit. The Rob Reiner coming-of-age film “Stand By Me” was put into wide release by Columbia Pictures.
In 1992, on the second day of the Ruby Ridge siege in Idaho, an FBI sharpshooter killed Vicki Weaver, the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver (the sharpshooter later said he was targeting the couple’s friend Kevin Harris, and didn’t see Vicki Weaver).
Ten years ago: President George W. Bush, addressing a Veterans of Foreign Wars conference in Kansas City, Missouri, offered a fresh endorsement of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (NOO’-ree ahl-MAHL’-ih-kee), calling him “a good guy, good man with a difficult job.” A Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Iraq, killing all 14 U.S. soldiers. Hurricane Dean slammed into Mexico for the second time in as many days. The Texas Rangers became the first team in 110 years to score 30 runs in a game, setting an American League record in a 30-3 rout of the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of a doubleheader. (Texas won the second game, 9-7.) Poet and short story writer Grace Paley died in Thetford Hill, Vermont, at age 84.