Today in history

On August 23, 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 1926, silent film star Rudolph Valentino died in New York at age 31.

In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in Moscow.

In 1947, an audience at the Hollywood Bowl heard President Harry S. Truman’s daughter, Margaret, give her first public concert as a singer (she had previously peformed on the radio).

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.”

Ten years ago: A report by top U.S. spy analysts concluded the Iraqi government was strained by rampant violence, deep sectarian differences among its political parties and stymied leadership. Reality TV star Nicole Richie spent 82 minutes in a Los Angeles County jail to complete a four-day sentence for driving under the influence of drugs.

Five years ago: Lance Armstrong chose not to pursue arbitration in the drug case brought against him by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, setting the stage for his Tour de France titles to be stripped and his name to be all but wiped from the record books of the sport he once ruled.

One year ago: Standing amid piles of waterlogged debris, President Barack Obama promised a sustained national effort to rebuild flood-ravaged southern Louisiana “even after the TV cameras leave” on a visit aimed in part at stemming campaign-season criticism that he was slow to respond to the disaster.

“The chains which cramp us most are those which weigh on us least.” — Anne Sophie Swetchine, Russian-French author (1782-1857).