August 191812 - "Old Ironsides" (the USS Constitution) won a battle against the British frigate Guerriere east of Nova Scotia. 1848 - The discovery of gold in California was reported by the New York Herald. 1856 - Gail Borden received a patent for his process of condensing milk by vacuum. 1909 - The first car race to be run on brick occurred at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 1917 - Team managers John McGraw and Christy Matthewson were arrested for breaking New York City's blue laws. The crime was their teams were playing baseball on Sunday. 1919 - Afghanistan gained independence from Britain. 1929 - "Amos and Andy," the radio comedy program, made its debut on NBC starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. 1934 - Adolf Hitler was approved for sole executive power in Germany as Fuehrer. 1940 - The new Civil Aeronautics Administration awarded honorary license #1 to Orville Wright. 1942 - About 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France. They suffered about 50 percent casualties. 1960 - Francis Gary Powers, an American U-2 pilot, was convicted of espionage in Moscow. 1960 - Two dogs were launched in a satellite into Earth's orbit by the Soviet Union. 1962 - Homero Blancas shot a 55 at the Premier Invitational Golf Tournament held in Longview, TX. It was the lowest score in U.S. competitive golf history. 1974 - During an anti-American protest in Nicosia, Cyprus, U.S. Ambassador Rodger P. Davies was fatally wounded by a bullet while in the American embassy. 1981 - Two Libyan SU-22s were shot down by two U.S. Navy F-14 fighters in the Gulf of Sidra. 1991 - Soviet hard-liners announced that President Mikhail Gorbachev had been removed from power. Gorbachev returned to power two days later. 1998 - The first piece of the 351 foot bronze statue of Christopher Columbus arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico. 1999 - Lorne Michaels received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 1999 - In Belgrade, thousands of Serbs attended a rally to demand the resignation of Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic. 2004 - Google Inc. stock began selling on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The initial price was set at $85 and ended the day at $100.34 with more than 22 million shares traded. 2010 - In Iraq, the last American combat brigage exited more than seven after the U.S.-led invasion began. 2016 - A federal judge ordered Hillary Clinton to answer questions from the watchdog group Judicial Watch in writing about her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. 2020 - Apple Inc. became the first company to be valued at over $2 trillion. |