TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS TUESDAY, AUG. 31, the 243rd day of 2021. There are 122 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1980, Poland’s Solidarity labor movement was born with an agreement signed in Gdansk that ended a 17-day-old strike.
In 1886, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.3 devastated Charleston, South Carolina, killing at least 60 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
In 1939, the first issue of Marvel Comics, featuring the Human Torch, was published by Timely Publications in New York.
In 1972, at the Munich Summer Olympics, American swimmer Mark Spitz won his fourth and fifth gold medals in the 100-meter butterfly, and the 800-meter freestyle relay; Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut won gold medals in floor exercise and the balance beam.
In 1986, 82 people were killed when an Aeromexico jetliner and a small private plane collided over Cerritos, California. The Soviet passenger ship Admiral Nakhimov collided with a merchant vessel in the Black Sea, causing both to sink; up to 448 people reportedly died.
In 1994, the Irish Republican Army declared a cease-fire. Russia officially ended its military presence in the former East Germany and the Baltics after half a century.
In 1996, three adults and four children drowned when their vehicle rolled into John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina; they had gone to see a monument to the sons of Susan Smith, who had drowned the two boys in October 1994.
In 1997, Prince Charles brought Princess Diana home for the last time, escorting the body of his former wife to a Britain that was shocked, grief-stricken and angered by her death in a Paris traffic accident earlier that day.
In 2005, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin reported “a significant number of dead bodies in the water” following Hurricane Katrina; Nagin ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and to instead stop increasingly hostile thieves.
In 2010, President Barack Obama ended the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, declaring no victory after seven years of bloodshed and telling those divided over the war in his country and around the world: “It is time to turn the page.”
In 2018, Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul,” was laid to rest after an eight-hour funeral at a Detroit church, where guests included Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson.
In 2019, a gunman carried out a shooting rampage that stretched 10 miles between the Texas communities of Midland and Odessa, leaving seven people dead before police killed the gunman outside a movie theater in Odessa.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Rock musician Jerry Allison (Buddy Holly and the Crickets) is 82. Actor Jack Thompson is 81. Violinist Itzhak Perlman and singer Van Morrison are 76. Rock musician Rudolf Schenker (The Scorpions) is 73. Actors Richard Gere and Stephen Henderson are 72. Olympic gold medal track and field athlete Edwin Moses is 66. Rock singer Glenn Tilbrook (Squeeze) and rock musician Gina Schock (The Go-Go’s) are 64. Singer Tony DeFranco is 62. R&B musician Larry Waddell (Mint Condition) is 58. Actor Jaime P. Gomez is 56. Rock musician Jeff Russo (Tonic) is 52. Singercomposer Deborah Gibson and actor Zack Ward are 51. Actor Chris Tucker is 49. Actor Sara Ramirez is 46.