TODAY IN HISTORY

TUESDAY AUG 17, 2021 1915

A mob in Cobb County, Georgia, lynched Jewish businessman Leo Frank, 31, whose death sentence for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan had been commuted to life imprisonment.

1807

Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat began heading up the Hudson River on its successful round trip between New York and Albany.

1863

Federal batteries and ships began bombarding Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor during the Civil War, but the Confederates managed to hold on despite several days of pounding.

1942

During World War II, U.S. 8th Air Force bombers attacked German forces in Rouen, France. U.S. Marines raided a Japanese seaplane base on Makin Island.

1964

Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa was sentenced in Chicago to five years in federal prison for defrauding his union’s pension fund.

1978

The first successful transatlantic balloon flight ended as Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed their Double Eagle II outside Paris.

1982

The first commercially produced compact discs, a recording of ABBA’S “The Visitors,” were pressed at a Philips factory near Hanover, West Germany.

1983

Lyricist Ira Gershwin died in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 86.

1987

Rudolf Hess, the last member of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle, died at Spandau Prison at age 93, an apparent suicide.

1988

Pakistani President Mohammad Zia ul-haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel were killed in a mysterious plane crash.

1998

President Bill Clinton gave grand jury testimony via closed-circuit television from the White House concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; he then delivered a TV address in which he denied previously committing perjury, admitted his relationship with Lewinsky was “wrong,” and criticized Kenneth Starr’s investigation.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (jahng ZUHMEEN’) is 95. Former MLB All-star Boog Powell is

80. Actor Robert Deniro is

78. Movie director Martha Coolidge is 75. Rock musician Gary Talley (The Box Tops) is 74.