Today is Thursday, Aug. 22, the 235th day of 2024. There are 131 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On Aug. 22, 1851, the schooner America outraced more than a dozen British vessels off the English coast to win a trophy that came to be known as the America’s Cup.
Also on this date:
In 1791, the Haitian Revolution began as enslaved people of Saint-Domingue rose up against French colonizers.
In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, which remained under Japanese control until the end of World War II.
In 1922, Irish revolutionary Michael Collins was shot to death, apparently by Irish Republican Army members opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty that Collins had co-signed.
In 1965, a fourteen-minute brawl ensued between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers after Giants pitcher Juan Marichal stuck Dodgers catcher John Roseboro in the head with a baseball bat. (Marichal and Roseboro would later reconcile and become lifelong friends.)
In 1968, Pope Paul VI arrived in Bogota, Colombia, for the start of the first papal visit to South America.
In 1972, John Wojtowicz (WAHT’-uh-witz) and Salvatore Naturile took seven employees hostage at a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Brooklyn, New York, during a botched robbery; the siege, which ended with Wojtowicz’s arrest and Naturile’s killing by the FBI, inspired the 1975 movie “Dog Day Afternoon.”
In 1989, Black Panthers co-founder Huey P. Newton was shot to death in Oakland, California.
In 1992, on the second day of the Ruby Ridge siege in Idaho, an FBI sharpshooter killed Vicki Weaver, the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver.
In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed welfare legislation that ended guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanded work from recipients.
In 2003, Alabama’s chief justice, Roy Moore, was suspended for his refusal to obey a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of his courthouse.
In 2007, A Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Iraq, killing all 14 U.S. soldiers aboard.
Today’s Birthdays:
- Author Annie Proulx (proo) is 89.
- Baseball Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski is 85.
- Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells is 83.
- Writer-producer David Chase is 79.
- CBS newsman Steve Kroft is 79.
- International Swimming Hall of Famer Diana Nyad is 75.
- Baseball Hall of Famer Paul Molitor is 68.
- Rock guitarist Vernon Reid is 66.
- Country singer Collin Raye is 64.
- Rock singer Roland Orzabal (Tears For Fears) is 63.
- Singer Tori Amos is 61.
- International Tennis Hall of Famer Mats Wilander (VEE’-luhn-dur) is 60.
- Rapper GZA (JIHZ’-ah)/The Genius is 58.
- Actor Ty Burrell is 57.
- Celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis is 54.
- Actor Rick Yune is 53.
- Singer Howie Dorough (Backstreet Boys) is 51.
- Comedian-actor Kristen Wiig is 51.
- Talk show host James Corden is 46.
- Pop singer Dua Lipa is 29.
