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On This Day: August 22

Today is Friday, August 22, 2008. This is the 235th day of the year, with 131 days remaining in 2008.


Fact of the Day: punctuation

Punctuation is the use of spacing, conventional signs, and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of texts. The word is derived from the Latin punctus 'point.' From the 15th-18th centuries the subject was known in English as pointing; and the term punctuation, first recorded in the middle of the 16th century, was reserved for the insertion of vowel points (marks placed near consonants to indicate preceding or following vowels) in Hebrew texts. The two words exchanged meanings between 1650-1750.


Holidays

Feast day of St. Timothy, St. Andrew of Fiesole, St. Sigfrid of Wearmouth, and St. John Kemble.


Events

1642 - The English Civil War began, between the supporters of Charles I and of Parliament, when the king raised his standard at Nottingham.

1762 - Ann Franklin became the first female editor of an American newspaper, the "Newport Mercury" (in Rhode Island).

1846 - The United States annexed New Mexico.

1851 - U.S.-built schooner America beat a fleet of Britain's finest ships in a race around England's Isle of Wight, in the first America's Cup.

1864 - The International Red Cross was founded by Swiss humanitarian Jean-Henri Dunant.

1902 - President Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to ride in an automobile, in Hartford, Connecticut.

1906 - The Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, New Jersey began to manufacture the Victrola (record player).

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

1945 - The Vietnam Conflict began when a team of Free French parachuted into southern Indochina in response to a successful coup by Communist guerrilla Ho Chi Minh.

1966 - The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), later renamed the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), was formed.

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 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.



Lebanon Related Events

2005 - In Lebanon a bombing wounded five people in Beirut.
(AP, 8/23/05)


Births

1834 - Samuel Pierpont Langley, American astronomer, physicist, aeronautics pioneer.
1862 - Claude Debussy, French composer.
1880 - George Herriman, American cartoonist.
1893 - Dorothy Parker (Rothschild), American author, columnist.
1904 - Deng Xiaoping, leader of the People's Republic of China (1970s-1997).
1920 - Ray Bradbury, American science fiction writer.



Deaths

1922 - Michael Collins, Irish nationalist hero of the struggle for independence.
1989 - Huey P. Newton, American political activist and co-founder of the Black Panther Party shot to death in Oakland, California.