August 26th

 

Birthdays

Lee Deforest 1873
Christopher Isherwood 1904
Albert Sabine 1906
Jim Davis 1915
Ronnie Graham 1919
Georgia Gibbs 1920
Ben Bradlee 1921
Irving R. Levine 1922
Jan Clayton 1925
Ben J. Wattenberg 1933
Tommy Heinsohn 1934
Geraldine Ferraro 1935
Don Bowman 1937
Bill White 1939
Vic Dana 1942
Swede Savage 1946
Valerie Simpson 1948
Bob Cowsill (The Cowsills) 1949
Michael Jeter 1952
Brett Cullen 1956
Alex Trevino 1957
John O'Neill 1957
Jet Black (The Stranglers) 1958
Branford Marsalis 1960
Jimmy Olander (Diamond Rio) 1961
Chris Burke 1965
Adrian Young (No Doubt) 1969
David Grubka 1972
Macaulay Culkin 1980
 

Misc. History


55 B.C. - Britain was invaded by Roman forces under Julius Caesar.

1498 - Michelangelo was commissioned to make the "Pieta."

1743 - Antoine Lavoisier was born. He was the chemist that proved that the union of oxygen and other chemicals is used in burning, rusting of metals and breathing.

1842 - The first fiscal year was established by the U.S. Congress to start on July 1st.

1847 - Liberia was proclaimed as an independent republic.

1873 - Dr. Lee DeForest was born. He was the inventor of the Audion tube. The tube makes the broadcasting of sound possible.

1873 - The school board of St. Louis, MO, authorized the first U.S. public kindergarten.

1883 - A two-day eruption of the volcanic island Krakatoa began. The tidal waves that were associated with the eruption killed 36,000 people when they destroyed the island.

1896 - In the Philippines, and insurrection began against the Spanish government.

1920 - The 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. The amendment prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in the voting booth.

1934 - Adolf Hitler demanded that France turn over their Saar region to Germany.

1937 - All Chinese shipping was blockaded by Japan.

1939 - The first televised major league baseball games were shown. The event was a double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

1939 - The radio program, "Arch Oboler’s Plays", presented the NBC Symphony for the first time.

1945 - The Japanese were given surrender instructions on the U.S. battleship Missouri at the end of World War II.

1947 - Don Bankhead became the first black pitcher in major league baseball.

1957 - It was announced that an intercontinental ballistic missile was successfully tested by the Soviet Union.

1957 - The first Edsel made by the Ford Motor Company rolled out.

1961 - The International Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto opened.

1974 - Charles Lindberg died at the age of 72.

1973 - A U.S. Presidential Proclamation was declared that made August 26th Women's Equality Day.

1978 - Sigmund Jahn blasted off aboard the Russian Soyuz 31 and became the first German in space.

1986 - Jennifer Levin was found strangled in New York City's Central Park. In the case called the "preppie murder" case Robert Chambers eventually plead guilty.

1987 - The Fuller Brush Company announced plans to open two retail stores in Dallas, TX. The company that had sold its products door to door for 81 years.

1990 - In Gainesville, FL, two slain college students were found in their apartment. Three more bodies would be found in the few days that followed.

1990 - The 55 Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait left Baghdad by car and headed for the Turkish border.

1991 - Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev promised that national elections would be held.

1992 - A mistrial was declared in the Iran-Contra cover-up trial of CIA spy Clair George.

1992 - A "no-fly zone" was imposed on the southern 1/3 of Iraq. The move by the U.S., France and Britain was aimed at protecting Iraqi Shiite Muslims.

1993 - Dorothea Puente was convicted of murdering three people that had been tenants in her boarding house. She was sentenced to life without parole.

1996 - Barbara Jewell asked U.S. President Clinton to clear her son's name in connection with the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. Richard Jewell was later cleared by the Justice Department.

1996 - Rober Vesco, a U.S. financier, was convicted in a Cuban court of economic crimes.

1996 - Chun Doo-hwan, the former military leader of South Korea, was sentenced to death. His crimes were mutiny, treason and embezzlement.

1998 - The U.S. government announced that they were investigating Microsoft in an attempt to discover if they "bullied" Intel into delaying new technology.

1998 - U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a review of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

1998 - Sudan filed a criminal lawsuit against U.S. President Clinton and the United States for the bombing of the El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries Company. The Sudanese claimed that the plant was strictly civilian.