Today is Monday, August 12, the 225th day of the yr 2024. There are 141 days left within the yr.
Today in history:
On August 12, 2017, a driver plowed right into a crowd peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally in the faculty town of Charlottesville, Virginia, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring greater than a dozen others. (The attacker, James Alex Fields, was sentenced to life in prison on 29 federal hate crimes and life plus 419 years on federal charges.)
Also on this date:
In 1867, President Andrew Johnson triggered an impeachment against him for defying Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, with whom he had clashed over Reconstruction policy. (Johnson was acquitted by the Senate.)
In 1909, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500, opened.
In 1944, during World War II, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the eldest son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was killed along together with his co-pilot when their naval plane loaded with explosives exploded over England.
In 1953, the Soviet Union conducted a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.
In 1960, the USA launched the primary balloon communications satellite – Echo 1 – from Cape Canaveral.
In 1981, IBM introduced its first laptop computer, the Model 5150, at a press conference in New York.
In 1985, the world's worst aviation accident occurred when a damaged Boeing 747 belonging to Japan Airlines crashed right into a mountain on a domestic flight. 520 people were killed. Four passengers survived.
In 1990, fossil collector Sue Hendrickson discovered considered one of the most important and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons ever. The skeleton, named “Sue” after Hendrickson, is now on display on the Field Museum in Chicago.
In 1994, baseball's eighth labor dispute since 1972 occurred. Players went on strike because they didn’t allow team owners to limit their salaries.
In 2000, the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk and its 118-strong crew were lost during naval exercises within the Barents Sea.
In 2013, James “Whitey” Bulger, the scary Boston mob boss and considered one of the country's most wanted fugitives, was convicted of a series of 11 murders and dozens of other gang-related crimes, a lot of which were committed while he was allegedly an FBI informant. (Bulger was sentenced to life in prison; he was fatally beaten in a West Virginia prison in 2018, hours after being transferred from a Florida facility.)
In 2022, Salman Rushdie, the writer whose writings led to death threats from Iran within the Nineteen Eighties, was attacked and stabbed within the neck by a person who stormed onto the stage as he was about to provide a lecture in western New York State.
Today's birthdays:
- Investor and philanthropist George Soros is 94.
- Actor George Hamilton is 85.
- The singer and musician Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) is 75.
- Singer Kid Creole (Kid Creole and the Coconuts) is 74.
- Film director Chen Kaige is 72.
- Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny is 70.
- Actor Bruce Greenwood is 68.
- Lynette Woodard, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, is 65.
- Rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot is 61.
- Actor Peter Krause (KROW'-zuh) is 59.
- Pete Sampras, a member of the Tennis Hall of Fame, is 53.
- Actor and comedian Michael Ian Black is 53.
- Actress Yvette Nicole Brown is 53.
- Actor Casey Affleck is 49.
- Boxer Tyson Fury is 36.
- Actor Lakeith Stanfield is 33.
- NBA All-Star Khris Middleton is 33.
- Actress Cara Delevingne (DEHL's wife) is 32 years old.
- Tennis player Stefanos Tsitsipas is 26.
Originally published:
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