Today in History
Today’s highlight:
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:
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.
1944: During World War II, German forces in Toulon and Marseille, France, surrendered to Allied troops.
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.
1964: Two days of race-related rioting erupted in North Philadelphia over a false rumor that white police officers had beaten to death a pregnant Black woman.
1968: Police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey for president.
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.
2005: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered everyone in the city to evacuate after Hurricane Katrina grew to a monster storm.
2009: The Los Angeles County coroner’s office announced that Michael Jackson’s death was a homicide caused primarily by the powerful anesthetic propofol and another sedative, lorazepam.
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.
2017: Floodwaters reached the rooflines of single-story homes as Hurricane Harvey poured rain on the Houston area for a fourth consecutive day; thousands of people had been rescued from the flooding.
2018: A white former police officer, Roy Oliver, was convicted of murder for fatally shooting an unarmed Black 15-year-old boy, Jordan Edwards, while firing into a car packed with teenagers in suburban Dallas; Oliver was sentenced the following day to 15 years in prison.
Ten years ago: Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin headlined a “Restoring Honor” rally attended by tens of thousands in Washington.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama compared tensions between the U.S. and Israel over the Iranian nuclear deal to a family feud, and said in a webcast with Jewish Americans that he expected quick improvements in ties between the longtime allies once the accord was implemented.
One year ago: New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination; the campaign collapsed amid low polling and major fundraising struggles.