TODAY IN HISTORY

TUESDAY AUG 31, 2021

1980

Poland’s Solidarity labor movement was born with an agreement signed in Gdansk that ended a 17-day-old strike.

1886

An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.3 devastated Charleston, South Carolina, killing at least 60 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

1939

The first issue of Marvel Comics, featuring the Human Torch, was published by Timely Publications in New York.

1972

At the Munich Summer Olympics, American swimmer Mark Spitz won his fourth and fifth gold medals in the 100-meter butterfly and 800-meter freestyle relay; Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut won gold medals in floor exercise and the balance beam.

1986

82 people were killed when an Aeromexico jetliner and a small private plane collided over Cerritos, California. The Soviet passenger ship Admiral Nakhimov collided with a merchant vessel in the Black Sea, causing both to sink; up to 448 people reportedly died.

1992

White separatist Randy Weaver surrendered to authorities in Naples, Idaho, ending an 11-day siege by federal agents that had claimed the lives of Weaver’s wife, son and a deputy U.S. marshal.

1994

The Irish Republican Army declared a cease-fire. Russia officially ended its military presence in the former East Germany and the Baltics after half a century.

1996

Three adults and four children drowned when their vehicle rolled into John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina; they had gone to see a monument to the sons of Susan Smith, who had drowned the two boys in Oct. 1994.

1997

Prince Charles brought Princess Diana home for the last time, escorting the body of his former wife to a Britain that was shocked, griefstricken and angered by her death in a Paris traffic accident earlier that day.