DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Friday, Aug. 20, the 232nd day of 2021. There are 133 days left in the year.
On this date:
1862: The New York Tribune published an open letter by editor Horace Greeley calling on President Abraham Lincoln to take more aggressive measures to free the slaves and end the South’s rebellion.
1866: President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, months after fighting had stopped.
1882: Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” had its premiere in Moscow.
1953: The Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
1955: Hundreds of people were killed in anti-french rioting in Morocco and Algeria.
1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act, a nearly $1 billion anti-poverty measure.
1968: The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring” liberalization drive.
1979: Swimmer Diana Nyad succeeded in her third attempt at swimming from the Bahamas to Florida.
1986: Postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill went on a deadly rampage at a post office in Edmond, Okla., shooting 14 fellow workers to death before killing himself.
1988: A cease-fire in the war between Iraq and Iran went into effect.
1989: Fifty-one people died when a pleasure boat sank in the River Thames in London after colliding with a dredger.
2017: Actor, comic and longtime telethon host Jerry Lewis died of heart disease in Las Vegas at the age of 91.
2019: President Donald Trump abruptly canceled an upcoming trip to Denmark, which owns Greenland, after the Danish prime minister dismissed the idea of the United States purchasing the mostly frozen island.
News anchor Connie Chung is 75. Trombone player Jimmy Pankow of Chicago is 74. Actor Ray Wise (“Reaper,” “Twin Peaks”) is 74. Actor John Noble (“Lord of the Rings” films) is 73. Singer Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) is 73. Singer Rudy Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers is 69. Singer-songwriter John Hiatt is 69. Actor-director Peter Horton (“thirtysomething”) is 68. “Today” show weatherman Al Roker is 67. Actor Joan Allen is 65. Actor James Marsters (“Angel,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) is 59. Rapper KRS-ONE is 56. Actor Colin Cunningham (“Falling Skies”) is 55. Actor
Billy Gardell (“Mike and Molly”) is 52. Singer Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit is 51. Actor Jonathan Ke Quan (“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”) is 51. Guitarist Brad Avery of Third Day is 50. Actor
Misha Collins (“Supernatural”) is 47. Singer
Monique Powell of Save Ferris is 46. Actor Ben Barnes (“Westworld,” “Prince Caspian”) is 40. Actor Meghan Ory (“One Upon a Time”) is 39. Actor Andrew Garfield (“The Amazing Spider-man”) is 38. Actor Brant Daugherty (“Pretty Little Liars”) is 36. Singer-actor Demi Lovato is 29.