Also on this day
Lead Story
1969
On this day in 1969, the Woodstock Music Festival opens on a patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel.
Promoters John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang originally envisioned the festival as a way to raise funds to build a...
American Revolution
1780
On this day in 1780, American Lieutenant Colonel Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” and his irregular cavalry force of 250 rout a party of Loyalists commanded by Major Micajah Gainey at Port’s Ferry, South Carolina. Meanwhile, General Horatio Gates’ men consumed half-baked bread, which sickened them overnight and contributed to...
Automotive
1899
On this day in 1899, in Detroit, Michigan, Henry Ford resigns his position as chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company’s main plant in order to concentrate on automobile production.
Henry Ford left his family’s farm in Dearborn, Michigan, at age 16 to work in the machine shops of Detroit....
Civil War
1861
On this day in 1861, just months after he surrendered Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Union General Robert Anderson is named commander of the Department of Kentucky.Born in Kentucky in 1805, Anderson attended West Point and earned distinction in the Black Hawk War of 1832. He also fought in Florida’s Seminole...
Cold War
1964
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev declares that he is ready to begin disarmament talks with the West. Though the Russian leader declined to discuss specific plans for disarmament, his statement was interpreted as an indication that he sought to limit the possibility of nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the...
Crime
2006
Mary Winkler, who confessed to fatally shooting her pastor husband Matthew Winkler in his sleep at their church parsonage in Selmer, Tennessee, is released from jail on $750,000 bail. Winkler was later convicted in his killing, but served only a short time in prison.
On March 22, 2006, church members found...
Disaster
1983
Hurricane Alicia forms south of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico on this day in 1983. Three days later, the Texas Gulf Coast is slammed by the storm, causing 21 deaths, thousands of injuries and billions of dollars in damages.
When Alicia hit Galveston, Texas, it was the first hurricane to...
General Interest
1057
At the Battle of Lumphanan, King Macbeth of Scotland is slain by Malcolm Canmore, whose father, King Duncan I, was murdered by Macbeth 17 years earlier.Macbeth was a grandson of King Kenneth II and also had a claim to the throne through his wife, Gruoch, who was the granddaughter of...
1914
The American-built waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship.The rush of settlers to California and Oregon in the mid 19th century was the initial impetus of the U.S. desire to...
1947
The Indian Independence Bill, which carves the independent nations of India and Pakistan out of the former Mogul Empire, comes into force at the stroke of midnight. The long-awaited agreement ended 200 years of British rule and was hailed by Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi as the “noblest act of...
1961
Two days after sealing off free passage between East and West Berlin with barbed wire, East German authorities begin building a wall–the Berlin Wall–to permanently close off access to the West. For the next 28 years, the heavily fortified Berlin Wall stood as the most tangible symbol of the Cold...
Hollywood
1979
On this day in 1979, Apocalypse Now, the acclaimed Vietnam War film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, opens in theaters around the United States.
The film, inspired in part by Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness, among other sources, told the story of an Army captain (played by Martin Sheen)...
Literary
1887
Edna Ferber is born on this day in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Ferber went to work as a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal while still in her teens. She began publishing stories in her early 20s, and the reading public fell in love with her lively, no-nonsense character Emma McChesney, a traveling...
Old West
1812
Potawatomi Indians kill William Wells, an Indian captive turned Indian fighter.
Born in Pennsylvania in 1770, Wells migrated with his family to Kentucky when he was nine years old. Five years later he was captured by Miami Indians and adopted into the family of the Wea village chief Gaviahatte. The young...
Presidential
1930
On this day in 1930, President Herbert Hoover gives a press conference in which he offers plans for relief of individuals and businesses affected by a series of devastating droughts. The droughts, combined with a major stock market crash in October 1929, resulted in dire economic conditions in the country...
Sports
1859
On August 15, 1859, Charles Albert Comiskey, namesake of Chicago’s famous Comiskey Park, is born in Chicago, Illinois. Comiskey went on to become the first and only player to later own a team.
Before he was nicknamed “The Old Roman,” Charley Comiskey was just a kid who loved baseball. The third...
Vietnam War
1969
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, “An Aquarian Exposition,” opens at Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in upstate New York. Promoters expected the music festival, modeled after the famous Monterey Pop Festival, to attract up to 200,000 for the weekend, but nearly a half a million people converged on the...
1970
South Vietnamese officials report that regional forces killed 308 Communist troops in four days of heavy fighting along a coastal strip south of the DMZ. This was one of the biggest victories of the war for the regional forces in the war and was extremely significant since one of...
1971
In South Vietnam, North Vietnamese troops increase operations along the DMZ. This activity had begun on August 12 and continued until the 15th. The North Vietnamese captured the South Vietnamese marine base at Ba Ho, two miles south of the DMZ; most of the defenders were killed or...
World War I
1914
On this day in 1914, the government of Japan sends an ultimatum to Germany, demanding the removal of all German ships from Japanese and Chinese waters and the surrender of control of Tsingtao—the location of Germany’s largest overseas naval bases, located on China’s Shantung Peninsula—to Japan by noon on August...
World War II
1945
On this day in 1945, Emperor Hirohito broadcasts the news of Japan’s surrender to the Japanese people.
Although Tokyo had already communicated to the Allies its acceptance of the surrender terms of the Potsdam Conference several days earlier, and a Japanese news service announcement had been made to that effect, the...
