August 29




1533 - Atahualpa, the last Incan King of Peru, was murdered on orders from Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro. The Inca Empire died with him.

1828 - A patent was issued to Robert Turner for the self-regulating wagon brake.

1833 - The "Factory Act" was passed in England to settle child labor laws.

1842 - The Treaty of Nanking was signed by the British and the Chinese. The treaty ended the first Opium War and gave the island of Honk Kong to Britain.

1885 - The first prizefight under the Marquis of Queensberry Rules was held in Cincinnati, OH. John L. Sullivan defeated Dominick McCaffery in six rounds.

1886 - In New York City, Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-chang's chef invented chop suey.

1892 - Pop (Billy) Shriver (Chicago Cubs) caught a ball that was dropped from the top of the Washington Monument in Washington, DC.

1907 - The Quebec Bridge collapsed killing 75 workers. The bridge was being built across the St. Lawrence River above Quebec City.

1944 - During the continuing celebration of the liberation of France from the Nazis, 15,000 American troops marched down the Champs Elysees in Paris.

1945 - U.S. General Douglas MacArthur left for Japan to officially accept the surrender of the Japanese.

1949 - At the University of Illinois, a nuclear device was used for the first time to treat cancer patients.

1957 - Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina set a filibuster record in the U.S. when he spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes.

1962 - The lower level of the George Washington Bridge was completed.

1965 - Gemini 5, carrying astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles ("Pete") Conrad, splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean after eight days in space.

1966 - Mia Farrow withdrew from the cast of the ABC-TV's "Peyton Place."

1967 - The final episode of "The Fugitive" aired.

1971 - Hank Aaron became the first baseball player in the National League to hit 100 or more runs in each of 11 seasons.

1973 - U.S. President Nixon was ordered by Judge John Sirica to turn over the Watergate tapes. Nixon refused and appealed the order.

1977 - Lou Brock brought his total of stolen bases to 893. The record he beat was held by Ty Cobb for 49 years.

1983 - Two U.S. marines were killed in Lebanon by the militia group Amal when they fired mortar shells at the Beirut airport.

1983 - The anchor of the USS Monitor, from the U.S. Civil War, was retrieved by divers.

1984 - A B-1 bomber prototype crashed in the Mojave Desert killing one crew member and injuring two others.

1989 - Seven bombs exploded in Medillin and Bogota, Columbia. Police blamed drug traffickers.

1990 - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in a television interview, declared that America could not defeat Iraq.

1991 - The Communist Party in the Soviet Union had its bank accounts frozen and activities were suspended because of the Party's role in the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev.

1991 - The republics of Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to stay in the Soviet Union.

1992 - The U.N. Security Council agreed to send troops to Somalia to guard the shipments of food.

1994 - Mario Lemieux announced that he would be taking a medical leave of absence due to fatigue, an aftereffect of his 1993 radiation treatments. He would sit out the National Hockey Leagues (NHL) 1994-95 season.

1995 - The Eduard Shevardnadze, the Georgian leader, survived an attempt on his life. The attempt was made in the form of a car bomb that exploded near his motorcade.

1995 - At the O.J. Simpson trial, tapes of Mark Fuhrman were played. The recordings were of Fuhrman making racial comments.

1997 - Hooded men killed more than 300 people in an Algerian farm village in the worst carnage since an Islamic insurgency began.

1998 - Northwest Airlines pilots went on strike after their union rejected a last-minute company offer.

2001 - In Dallas, TX, George Rivas was sentenced to death for the murder of a police office during a robbery. Rivas was the leader of a group of prison escapees referred to as the Texas 7.

2004 - India test-launched a nuclear-capable missle able to carry a one-ton warhead. The weapon had a range of 1,560 miles.