NEA DATEBOOK

Today is the 229th day of 2021 and the 59th day of summer.

TODAY’S HISTORY: In 1585, European colonists disembarked at Roanoke Island in North Carolina.

In 1863, Union forces began shelling Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

In 1959, a magnitude-7.3 earthquake struck near Hebgen Lake in Montana, causing a landslide that later formed Earthquake Lake.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton testified before a grand jury and later apologized on national television for having a “wrong” relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Davy Crockett (1786-1836), frontiersman/soldier; Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), Black Nationalist leader; Samuel Goldwyn (1882-1974), film producer; Mae West (1893-1980), actress; W. Mark Felt (1913-2008), FBI agent; Maureen O’Hara (1920-2015), actress; Robert De Niro (1943- ), actor; Jonathan Franzen (1959- ), author; Sean Penn (1960- ), actor/director; Jon Gruden (1963- ), football coach/analyst; Donnie Wahlberg (1969- ), singer/actor.

TODAY’S FACT: At the time when he was providing key information on the Watergate scandal to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, W. Mark Felt was the associate director of the FBI, the bureau’s second-highest ranking official.

TODAY’S SPORTS: In 2008 in Beijing, swimmer Michael Phelps won a gold medal in the 400-meter medley relay, becoming the first athlete to win eight gold medals in a single Olympic Games.

TODAY’S QUOTE: “Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. And what the internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It leaves nothing to the imagination.” — Jonathan Franzen