TODAY IN HISTORY
ON AUG 16...
In 1812 Detroit fell to British and Indian forces in the War of 1812.
In 1829 the original “Siamese twins,” Chang and Eng Bunker, arrived in Boston to be exhibited to the Western world.
In 1858 a telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan was transmitted over the newly laid trans-Atlantic cable.
In 1861 President Abraham Lincoln prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding states of the Confederacy.
In 1862 Amos Alonzo Stagg, college football coach who had the longest coaching career — 71 years — in the sport's history, was born in West Orange, N.J.
In 1894 George Meany, who would become the first president of the AFL-CIO, was born in New York.
In 1948 baseball great Babe Ruth died in New York; he was 53.
In 1954 Sports Illustrated was first published by Time Inc.
In 1956 Adlai E. Stevenson II was nominated for president at the Democratic convention in Chicago.
In 1977 Elvis Presley died at Graceland Mansion in Memphis; he was 42.
In 1978 James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr., told a Capitol Hill hearing that he did not commit the crime, saying he had been set up by a mysterious man called “Raoul.”
In 1987 a Northwest Airlines jet crashed on takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing 156 people. The sole survivor was a 4-year-old girl. Also in 1987 thousands of people worldwide began a two-day celebration of the “harmonic convergence,” which believers called the start of a new, purer age of humankind.
In 1988 Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush named Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle to be his running mate.
In 1989 a rare “prime time'' lunar eclipse occurred over most of the United States, although clouds spoiled the view for many.
In 1990 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein issued a statement in which he repeatedly called President George H.W. Bush a “liar'' and said the outbreak of war could result in “thousands of Americans wrapped in sad coffins.''
In 1992, on the eve of the Republican national convention in Houston, President Bush and party officials denied a New York Times report that a confrontation with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was motivated partly by political concerns.
In 1993 President Bill Clinton opened his campaign for health care reform with a speech to the nation's governors in Tulsa. Also
in 1993 New York police rescued business executive Harvey Weinstein from a covered 14-footdeep pit, where he had been held nearly two weeks for ransom.
In 1995 the federal government more than doubled its estimate of rapes or attempted rapes in the United States each year to 310,000, a finding praised by leaders of women's groups.
In 1997 two cosmonauts just returned from Mir, Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin, held a news conference in which they rejected criticism that they were to blame for troubles aboard the aging, problemplagued space station.
In 1999, four months after two gunmen sent them fleeing in horror, students returned to Columbine
High School in Colorado for the start of the school year. Also in 1999 Vladimir Putin won confirmation as Russia's prime minister, the fifth since early 1998.
In 2000 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles formally nominated Al Gore for president.
In 2001 Paul Burrell, trusted butler of Princess Diana for many years, was charged with the theft of hundreds of royal family items, a charge he denied.
In 2002 Major League Baseball players set a strike deadline of Aug. 30; the two sides finally reached an agreement with just six hours to spare.
In 2003 a car driven by U.S. Rep. Bill Janklow, R-S.D., ran a stop sign on a rural road in South Dakota and collided with a motorcycle driven by Randy Scott, who died in the accident. (Janklow announced his resignation from the House in December 2003 after he was convicted of second-degree vehicular manslaughter, among other charges; he served 100 days in jail.)
In 2008 U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal in a single Olympic games in Beijing, breaking Mark Spitz's 36-year-old record.
In 2013 Christopher Lane, 22, of Australia, who attended East Central University on a baseball scholarship, was shot to death while jogging in Duncan, Okla. One of three teens charged in the case said they did it for the thrill.
In 2016 the Blue Cut fire, which over several days would destroy more than 300 houses and other buildings over tens of thousands of acres, erupted in rural San Bernardino County about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.