August 22
Today's:

1485 - The War of the Roses ended with the death of England's King Richard III. He was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field. His successor was Henry V II.

1567 - The "Council of Blood" was established by the Duke of Alba. This was the beginning of his reign of terror in the Netherlands.

1572 - Earl of Northumberland was executed for treason in York, England.

1582 - King James VI was captured in the Ruthven raid while he was hunting. He was held captive until June of 1583.

1642 - The English Civil War began when Charles I called Parliament and its soldiers traitors.

1762 - Ann Franklin became the editor of the Mercury of Newport in Rhode Island. She was the first female editor of an American newspaper.

1770 - Australia was claimed under the British crown when Captain James Cook landed there.

1775 - The American colonies were proclaimed to be in a state of open rebellion by England's King George III.

1846 - The U.S. annexed New Mexico.

1851 - The schooner America outraced the Aurora off the English coast to win a trophy that became known as the America's Cup.

1865 - A patent for liquid soap was received by William Sheppard.

1902 - In Hartford, CT, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt became the first president of the United States to ride in an automobile.

1906 - The Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, NJ began to manufacture the Victrola. The hand-cranked unit, with horn cabinet, sold for $200.

1910 - Japan formally annexed Korea.

1911 - It was announced that Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" had been stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. The painting reappeared two years later in Italy.

1932 - The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) began its first TV broadcast in England.

1938 - Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers appeared on the cover of "LIFE" magazine.

1941 - Nazi troops reached the outskirts of Leningrad during World War II.

1950 - Althea Gibson became the first black tennis player to be accepted into a national competition.

1951 - 75,052 people watched the Harlem Globetrotters perform. It was the largest crowd to see a basketball game.

1959 - Stephen Rockefeller married Anne Marie Rasmussen. Anne had once been a maid for the powerful and wealthy Rockefeller family.

1968 - Pope Paul VI arrived in Bogota, Colombia, for the start of the first papal visit to Latin America.

1972 - Due to its racial policies, Rhodesia was asked to withdraw from the 20th Olympic Summer Games.

1973 - Henry Kissinger was named Secretary of State by U.S. President Nixon. Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize in the same year.

1984 - The last Volkswagen Rabbit rolled off the assembly line in New Stanton, PA.

1985 - 55 people were killed in a fire aboard a British Airtours charter jet on a runway in England.

1986 - Kerr-McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million to settle a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit.

1989 - Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panthers, was shot to death in Oakland, CA. Tyrone Robinson was later convicted and sentenced to 32 years to life in prison for the killing.

1989 - Nolan Ryan became the first major league pitcher to strike out 5000 batters. (MLB)

1990 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush signed an order for calling reservists to aid in the build up of troops in the Persian Gulf.

1990 - The U.S. State Department announced that the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait would not be closed under President Saddam Hussein's demand.

1990 - Angry smokers blocked a street in Moscow to protest the summer-long cigarette shortage.

1991 - It was announced by Yugoslavia that a truce ordered on August 7th with Croatia had collapsed.

1991 - Mikhail S. Gorbachev returned to Moscow after the collapse of the hard-liners' coup. On the same day he purged the men that had tried to oust him.

1992 - In Rostock, Germany, neo-Nazi violence broke out against foreigners.

1995 - Congressman Mel Reynolds of Illinois was convicted in Chicago of criminal sexual assault, sexual abuse, child pornography and obstruction of justice for having sex with a former campaign worker who had been underage at the time.

1996 - U.S. President Clinton signed legislation that ended guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanded work from recipients.

1998 - "The Howard Stern Radio Show" premiered on CBS to about 70% of the U.S.

1998 - Mark David Chapman said that he did not want any of the money that would be made from the sale of the signed "Double Fantasy" album that John Lennon signed for him the same day he was killed. Chapman was currently serving sentence for the December 8, 1980 murder.

2000 - It was announced that all 118 crewmembers aboard the Kursk submarine were dead. The Russian vessel had sunk on August 4.

2004 - In Oslo, Norway, a version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" and his work "Madonna" were stolen from the Munch Museum. This version of "The Scream," one of four different versions, was a tempera painting on board.

Today's: