Today is Wednesday, August twenty first, the 234th day of the 12 months 2024. There are 132 days left within the 12 months.
Today in history:
On August 21, 1831, Nat Turner instigated a violent slave revolt in Virginia by which a minimum of 55 white people were killed. Following the revolt, quite a few black people were killed in revenge and Turner himself was later executed.
Also on this date:
In 1858, the primary of seven debates took place between Illinois Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.
In 1944, the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China began talks at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington that paved the way in which for the creation of the United Nations.
In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order making Hawaii the fiftieth state.
In 1983, Filipino politician Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated as he disembarked from a plane at Manila International Airport. (His widow, Corazon Aquino, became President of the Philippines three years later.)
In 1991, a hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev failed within the face of a preferred rebellion led by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.
In 1992, an eleven-day siege of the white separatist hut began Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, when government agents attempted to arrest Weaver for failure to look in court on charges that he had sold two illegal sawed-off shotguns. On the primary day of the siege, Weaver's teenage son Samuel and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan were killed.
In 1993, NASA suffered a serious setback: engineers lost contact with the Mars Observer space probe because it was attempting to achieve the red planet as a part of a $980 million mission.
In 2000, rescue efforts for the sunken Russian nuclear submarine Kursk ended with the report that not one of the 118 sailors had survived.
In 2010, Iranian and Russian engineers began loading fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant. Moscow promised to guard the plant and forestall the fabric there from getting used to supply potential weapons.
In 2015, three Americans, including US Air Force Staff Sergeant Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and student Anthony Sadler, met with British businessman Chris Norman. overpowered and disarmed a Moroccan gunman on a high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris.
In 2017 Americans experienced their first complete coast-to-coast solar eclipse since World War Iwith eclipse observers gathering along a path of totality stretching 2,600 miles across the continent
In 2018, Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and mediator, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other charges; Cohen said Trump directed him to rearrange for hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal to stave off damage to his pursuit of a White House seat. (Trump was found guilty in May 2024 on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to the payments.)
In 2020, a former police officer often known as the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo, told victims and relations in a Sacramento courtroom that he was “sincerely sorry” before being sentenced to multiple life sentences for a ten-year series of rapes and murders.
Today's birthdays:
- James Burton, member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is 85.
- Singer Jackie DeShannon is 83.
- Film director Peter Weir is 80.
- Willie Lanier, a member of the Football Hall of Fame, is 79.
- Actress Loretta Devine is 75.
- Two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin is 70.
- Actor Kim Cattrall is 68.
- Former NFL quarterback Jim McMahon is 65.
- Rock musician Serj Tankian (System of a Down) is 57.
- Actress Carrie-Anne Moss is 57.
- Google co-founder Sergei Brin is 51.
- Singer Kelis (kuh-LEES) is 45.
- TV star Brody Jenner is 41.
- Olympic sprint gold medalist Usain (yoo-SAYN') Bolt is 38.
- Country singer Kacey Musgraves is 36.
- Football player Robert Lewandowski is 36.
- Actor Hayden Panettiere (pan'-uh-tee-EHR') is 35.
- Comedian, singer and filmmaker Bo Burnham is 34.
Originally published:
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