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12th August 2008
On This Day : August 12
Today is Tuesday, August 12, 2008. This is the 225th day of the year, with 141 days remaining in 2008.
Fact of the Day: flood
"Floods are caused by rivers overflowing their banks or by high tides and strong winds blowing ocean waters onto land. They can occur in the spring when melting snow and ice from winter makes rivers unusually high. They can occur when hurricanes raise the tides and the winds and also accompany tsunamis. Torrential rain, as experienced in the Midwest in 1993, can do tremendous amounts of damage. The Mississippi is one of the three great rivers -- including Egypt's Nile and China's Yellow River -- that floods regularly. Floods can collapse or burst dams, fracture pipelines, and wash away homes. Some countries experience terrible floods because they are in low-lying coastal areas as in the Netherlands and Bangladesh."
Holidays
Feast day of St. Porcarius and his Companions, St. Jambert, archbishop of Canterbury, St. Euplus, and St. Murtagh or Muredach.
Thailand: Birthday of the Queen.
United Nations: International Youth Day.
Events
1676 - In colonial New England, King Philip's War effectively ended when Philip, chief of the Wampanoag Indians, was assassinated by a Native American working for the English.
1851 - Isaac Singer was granted a patent on his sewing machine.
1877 - Thomas Alva Edison completed the model for the first phonograph.
1896 - Gold was discovered near Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada.
1898 - Hawaii was formally annexed to the United States.
1898 - An armistice ended the Spanish-American War.
1908 - Henry Ford's first Model T rolled off the assembly line.
1935 - President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Bill.
1944 - Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., eldest son of Joseph Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was killed with his co-pilot when their explosives-laden Navy plane blew up over England.
1960 - The first successful communications satellite, Echo I, was put into Earth's orbit to relay voice and TV signals.
1961 - East Germany begins construction of the Berlin Wall
1966 - The last tour for the Beatles began in Chicago; and John Lennon apologized for boasting that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ.
1972 - The last American combat ground troops left Vietnam.
1990 - Skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex discovered: fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovers three huge bones jutting out of a cliff near Faith, South Dakota. They turn out to be part of the largest-ever Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, a 65 million-year-old specimen dubbed Sue, after its discoverer.
1992 - The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was concluded between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, creating the world's wealthiest trade bloc.
2000 - The Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea after the hull was damaged by a series of explosions; all 118 crew members died.
Lebanon Related Events
1976 - Syrian backed Christian militias completed their siege of the Tell al-Za'tar Palestinian camp in Lebanon leaving some 2000 people killed.
1982 - Israel staged heavy bombardment of Beirut. The UN Security council expressed its most serious concern about continued military activities in Lebanon, particularly in and around Beirut.
1991 - A letter from Lebanese kidnappers was made public; it offered to trade the release of Western hostages for the freedom of “all detainees” worldwide.
2005 - Lebanon freed the radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri, hours after Britain declared he would not be allowed to return to its shores.
2006 - Israel staged wide-ranging airstrikes and sent commandos into the Hezbollah heartland as the UN raced to begin enforcing its new cease-fire blueprint and stop the heavy fighting still raging in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said the militant organization would abide by the UN cease-fire resolution but would keep fighting as long as Israeli troops remained in southern Lebanon. Israel lost 24 soldiers, including five on a helicopter shot out of the air by guerrillas.
2006 - The UN Security Council adopted a resolution seeking a "full cessation" of violence between Israel and Hezbollah, offering the region its best chance yet for peace after a month of fighting that has killed more than 800 people and inflamed Mideast tensions.
Births
1781 - Robert Mills, American architect of Washington Monument, National Portrait Gallery, U.S. Treasury Building.
1881 - Cecil B. DeMille, American movie producer and director.
1911 - Cantinflas, Mexican circus clown, acrobat and actor.
1930 - Porter Waggoner, American country music singer, songwriter.
Deaths
1827 - William Blake, English poet and painter.
1964 - Ian Fleming, English novelist who created the character James Bond.
1982 - Henry Fonda, American stage and film actor.
2007 - Merv Griffin, television host and businessman. |