DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Friday, Aug. 27, the 239th day of 2021. There are 126 days left in the year. On this date:
1776: The Battle of Long Island began during the Revolutionary War as British troops attacked American forces who ended up being forced to retreat two days later.
1859: Edwin L. Drake drilled the first successful oil well in the United States, at Titusville, Pennsylvania.
1883: The island volcano Krakatoa erupted with a series of cataclysmic explosions; the resulting tidal waves in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait claimed some 36,000 lives in Java and Sumatra.
1949: A violent mob of white people prevented an outdoor concert headlined by Paul Robeson from taking place near Peekskill, New York. (The concert was held eight days later.)
1964: President Lyndon Baines Johnson
accepted his party’s nomination for a term in his own right, telling the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, “Let us join together in giving every American the fullest life which he can hope for.”
1967: Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, was found dead in his London flat from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills; he was 32.
1979: British war hero Lord Louis Mountbatten and three other people, including his 14-year-old grandson Nicholas, were killed off the coast of Ireland in a boat explosion claimed by the Irish Republican Army.
1998: Two suspects in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya were brought to the United States to face charges. (Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-‘owhali and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh were convicted in 2001 of conspiring to carry out the bombing; both were sentenced to life in prison.)
2001: Israeli helicopters fired a pair of rockets through office windows and killed senior PLO leader Mustafa Zibri.
2005: Coastal residents jammed freeways and gas stations as they rushed to get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina, which was headed toward New Orleans.
2006: A Comair CRJ-100 crashed after trying to take off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky., killing 49 people and leaving the co-pilot the sole survivor.
2008: Barack Obama was nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
2009: Mourners filed past the closed casket of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.
Actor Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman) is 69. Actor Peter Stormare (“Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski”) is 68. Country singer Colt Ford is 52. Actor Chandra Wilson (“Grey’s Anatomy”) is 52. Actor Demetria Mckinney
(“House of Payne”) is 43. Actor Aaron Paul
(“Breaking Bad,” “Big Love”) is 42. Guitarist Jon Siebels of Eve 6 is 42. Actor Shaun Weiss (“The Mighty Ducks”) is 42. Keyboardist Megan Garrett of Casting Crowns is 41. Actor Patrick J. Adams (“Suits”) is 40. Actor Karla Mosley (“The Bold and the Beautiful”) is 40. Actor Amanda Fuller (“Last Man Standing”) is 37. Singer Mario is 35. Actor Alexa Penavega
(“Spy Kids”) is 33. Actor Ellar Coltrane
(“Boyhood”) is 27.