THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Sunday, Aug. 20
President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, months after fighting had stopped.
Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” had its premiere in Moscow.
Exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Coyoacan, Mexico by Ramon Mercader. (Trotsky died the next day.)
The Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
Postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill went on a deadly rampage at a post office in Edmond, Oklahoma, shooting 14 fellow workers to death before killing himself.
Monday, Aug. 21
The first of seven debates took place between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.
Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. (It was recovered two years later in Italy.)
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order making Hawaii the 50th state.
The hardline coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin.
An 11-day siege began at the cabin of white separatist Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, as government agents tried to arrest Weaver for failing to appear in court on charges of selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns; on the first day of the siege, Weaver’s teenage son, Samuel, and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan were killed.
Tuesday, Aug. 22
Inventor John Fitch demonstrated his steamboat on the Delaware River to delegates from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
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.
Japan annexed Korea, which remained under Japanese control until the end of World
War II.
Austria-Hungary declared war against Belgium.
John Wojtowicz 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.”
President Bill Clinton signed welfare legislation that ended guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanded work from recipients.
Alabama’s chief justice, Roy Moore, was suspended for his refusal to obey a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of his courthouse.
Wednesday, Aug. 23
Scottish rebel leader Sir William Wallace was executed by the English for treason.
Britain’s King George III proclaimed the American colonies to be in a state of “open and avowed rebellion.”
Japan declared war against Germany in World War I.
Former priest John Geoghan, the convicted child molester whose prosecution sparked the sex abuse scandal that shook the Roman Catholic Church nationwide, died after another inmate attacked him in a Massachusetts prison.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama introduced his choice of running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, before a crowd outside the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois.
A magnitude-5.8 earthquake centered near Mineral, Virginia, the strongest on the East Coast since 1944, caused cracks in the Washington Monument and damaged Washington National Cathedral.
Thursday, Aug. 24
Long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash; an estimated 20,000 people died.
During the War of 1812, British forces invaded Washington, D.C., setting fire to the stillunder-construction Capitol and the White House, as well as other public buildings.
Congress passed a measure creating the Alaska Territory.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party in the United
States.
Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Pete Rose from the game for betting on his own team, the Cincinnati Reds.
Hurricane Andrew smashed into Florida, causing $30 billion in damage; 43 U.S. deaths were blamed on the storm.
The International Astronomical Union declared that Pluto was no longer a full-fledged planet, demoting it to the status of a “dwarf planet.”
Police in Aurora, Colorado, responding to a report of a suspicious person, used a chokehold to subdue Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man; he suffered cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and was later declared brain dead and taken off life support.
Republicans formally nominated President Donald Trump for a second term on the opening day of a scaleddown convention; during a visit to the convention city of Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump told delegates that “the only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election.”
Friday, Aug. 25
Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some settling in present-day New Orleans.
During World War II, Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation.
R&B singer Aaliyah was killed with eight others in a plane crash in the Bahamas; she was 22.
Two people were shot to death and a third was wounded as 17-yearold Kyle Rittenhouse opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle during a third night of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, over the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake. (Rittenhouse, who was taken into custody in Illinois the next day, said he was defending himself after the three men attacked him as he tried to protect businesses from protesters; he was acquitted on all charges, including homicide.)
Saturday, Aug. 26
Roman forces under Julius Caesar invaded Britain, with only limited success.
Thomas Edison demonstrated for reporters an improved version of his Kinetophone, a device for showing a movie with synchronized sound.
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing American women’s right to vote, was certified in effect by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby.
The first televised Major League Baseball games were shown on experimental station W2XBS: a double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. The Reds won the first game, 5-2, the Dodgers the second, 6-1.
Alaskans went to the polls to overwhelmingly vote in favor of statehood.
Thirteen-year-old AIDS patient Ryan White began “attending” classes at Western Middle School in Kokomo, Indiana, via a telephone hook-up at his home – school officials had barred Ryan from attending classes in person.