TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Saturday, Aug. 17. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On August 17, 1987, Rudolf Hess, the last member of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle, died at Spandau Prison at age 93, an apparent suicide.

ON THIS DATE

In 1863, federal batteries and ships began bombarding Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor during the Civil War, but the Confederates managed to hold on despite several days of pounding.

In 1943, the Allied conquest of Sicily during World War II was completed as U.S. and British forces entered Messina.

In 1969, Hurricane Camille slammed into the Mississippi coast as a Category 5 storm that was blamed for 256 U.S. deaths, three in Cuba.

In 1978, the first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight ended as Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed their Double Eagle II outside Paris.

In 1982, the first commercially produced compact discs, a recording of ABBA’s“The Visitors,”were pressed at a Philips factory near Hanover, West Germany.

In 1985, more than 1,400 meatpackers walked off the job at the Geo. A. Hormel and Co.’s main plant in Austin, Minnesota, in a bitter strike that lasted just over a year.

In 1988, Pakistani President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel were killed in a mysterious plane crash.

In 1996, the Reform Party announced Ross Perot had been selected to be its firstever presidential nominee, opting for the third-party’s founder over challenger Richard Lamm.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton gave grand jury testimony via closed-circuit television from the White House concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; he then delivered a TV address in which he denied previously committing perjury, admitted his relationship with Lewinsky was“wrong,” and criticized Kenneth Starr’s investigation.

In 1999, more than 17,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Turkey.

In 2017, a van plowed through pedestrians along a packed promenade in the Spanish city of Barcelona, killing 13 people and injuring 120. (A 14th victim died later from injuries.) Another man was stabbed to death in a carjacking that night as the van driver made his getaway, and a woman died early the next day in a vehicle-andknife attack in a nearby coastal town. (Six suspects in the attack were shot dead by police, two more died when a bomb workshop exploded.)

Ten years ago: An accident at Russia’s largest hydroelectric plant killed 75 workers. Five years ago: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder ordered a federal medical examiner to perform another autopsy on the remains of Michael Brown, a black Missouri teenager whose fatal shooting by a white police officer spurred a week of rancorous and sometimes violent protests in suburban St. Louis. One year ago: President Donald Trump said he had canceled plans for a Veterans Day military parade, citing what he called a “ridiculously high”price tag; he accused local politicians in Washington of price-gouging.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“A river has no politics.” — David E. Lilienthal, American public official (1899-1981). — ASSOCIATED PRESS