TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, Aug. 28, the 241st day of 2020. There are 125 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 people listened as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. On this date: In 1917, ten suffragists demanding that President Woodrow Wilson support a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote were arrested as they picketed outside the White House.
In 1944, during World War II, German forces in Toulon and Marseille (mahr-SAY’), France, surrendered to Allied troops.
In 1955, Emmett Till, a Black teen from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle’s home in Money, Mississippi, by two white men after he had supposedly whistled at a white woman; he was found brutally slain three days later.
In 1964, two days of racerelated rioting erupted in North Philadelphia over a false rumor that white police officers had beaten to death a pregnant Black woman.
In 1968, police and antiwar demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey for president.
In 1996, Democrats nominated President Bill Clinton for a second term at their national convention in Chicago. The troubled 15-year marriage of Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially ended with the issuing of a divorce decree.
In 2005, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (NAY’-gin) ordered everyone in the city to evacuate after Hurricane Katrina grew to a monster storm.
In 2009, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office announced that Michael Jackson’s death was a homicide caused primarily by the powerful anesthetic propofol (PROH’-puh-fahl) and another sedative, lorazepam (lor-AZ’-uh-pam).
In 2013, a military jury sentenced Maj. Nidal Hasan to death for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood that claimed 13 lives. On the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, President Barack Obama stood on the same steps as he challenged new generations to seize the cause of racial equality.