Also on this day
Lead Story
1950
On this day in 1950, officials of the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) accept Althea Gibson into their annual championship at Forest Hills, New York, making her the first African-American player to compete in a U.S. national tennis competition.
Growing up in Harlem, the young Gibson was a natural athlete....
American Revolution
1776
On this day in 1776, the British arrive at Long Island, between Gravesend and New Utrecht, with “near twenty four thousand men ready to land in a moment,” according to one observer.
General William Howe’s large army came to Long Island hoping to capture New York City and gain control of...
Automotive
1962
On August 22, 1962, President Charles De Gaulle of France survives one of several assassination attempts against him thanks to the superior performance of the presidential automobile: The sleek, aerodynamic Citroen DS 19, known as “La Deesse” (The Goddess).
When the Citroen DS made its sensational debut at the 1955...
Civil War
1862
President Abraham Lincoln writes a carefully worded letter in response to an abolitionist editorial by Horace Greeley, the editor of the influential New York Tribune, and hints at a change in his policy concerning slavery.
From the outset of the Civil War, Lincoln proclaimed the war’s goal to be the reunion...
Cold War
1968
In the streets of Prague and in the United Nations headquarters in New York City, Czechs protest against the Soviet invasion of their nation. The protests served to highlight the brutality of the Soviet action and to rally worldwide condemnation of the Soviet Union. On August 21, 1968, more than...
Crime
1933
The notorious Barker gang robs a Federal Reserve mail truck in Chicago, Illinois, and kills Officer Miles Cunningham. Netting only a bunch of worthless checks, the Barkers soon returned to a crime with which they had more success—kidnapping. A few months later, the Barkers kidnapped wealthy banker Edward Bremer, demanding...
Disaster
1992
Hurricane Andrew hits the Bahamas on this day in 1992. There and in South Florida, where it arrived two days later, the storm was responsible for the deaths of 26 people and an estimated $35 billion in property damage. Hurricane Andrew was so concentrated that it resembled a tornado in...
General Interest
1485
In the last major battle of the War of the Roses, King Richard III is defeated and killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field by Henry Tudor, the earl of Richmond. After the battle, the royal crown, which Richard had worn into the fray, was picked out of a bush...
1851
On August 22, 1851, the U.S.-built schooner America bests a fleet of Britain’s finest ships in a race around England’s Isle of Wight. The ornate silver trophy won by the America was later donated to the New York Yacht Club on condition that it be forever placed in international competition....
1864
The Geneva Convention of 1864 for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick of Armies in the Field is adopted by 12 nations meeting in Geneva. The agreement, advocated by Swiss humanitarian Jean-Henri Dunant, called for nonpartisan care to the sick and wounded in times of war...
1922
Irish revolutionary and Sinn Fein politician Michael Collins is killed in an ambush in west County Cork, Ireland.
In the early part of the century, Collins joined Sinn Fein, an Irish political party dedicated to achieving independence for all Ireland. From its inception, the party became the unofficial political wing of...
1992
In the second day of a standoff at Randy Weaver’s remote northern Idaho cabin atop Ruby Ridge, FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi wounds Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris, and then kills Weaver’s wife, Vicki.
Randy Weaver, an alleged white supremacist, had been targeted by the federal government for selling two illegal sawed-off...
Hollywood
1938
On this day in 1938, Hollywood’s most famous dancing duo, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, are featured on the cover of Life magazine, offering readers a graceful vision at a time when America is in the grips of the Great Depression.
Born Frederick Austerlitz on May 10, 1899, in Omaha, Nebraska,...
Literary
1935
Annie Proulx, author of The Shipping News, is born on this day in 1935 in Norwich, Connecticut. Her mother was a painter and her father a self-made executive in a textile company.
Annie lived in various towns in New England and in North Carolina during her childhood, and wrote her first...
Music
1969
Of the ponderously titled single hit that first entered the charts back in June of ’69, Time
Zager and Evans never returned to the pop charts after their triumphant debut in the summer of ’69. Nor did they ever explain what “Exordium and Terminus” meant. In their very brief career,...
Old West
1898
The hired assassin Jim Miller briefly joins the Texas Rangers, demonstrating how thin the line between outlaw and lawmen often was in the West.
Many lawmen in the Old West had never been on the wrong side of the law themselves, but more than a few moved easily between the worlds...
Presidential
1848
On this day in 1848, future President Ulysses S. Grant marries Julia Boggs Dent.
The couple had a relatively lengthy engagement, caused first by Julia’s father’s disapproval of his daughter marrying a poorly paid soldier and, later, by Grant’s absence while fighting in the Mexican-American War. At war’s end, he and...
Vietnam War
1962
Kennedy administration officials quoted in The New York Times estimate that there are 20,000 guerrilla troops in South Vietnam. Despite hundreds of engagements during the preceding two months and encouraging victories for South Vietnamese forces, the Viet Cong had grown in numbers, and U.S. officials felt that the war...
1967
Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General John P. McConnell, states before a Senate Subcommittee that adopting a graduated bombing policy in North Vietnam was a mistake. Three days later, Secretary of Defense McNamara admitted that the bombing of North Vietnam had not materially affected Hanoi’s “warmaking capability.”
1968
For the first time in two months, Viet Cong forces launch a rocket attack on Saigon, killing 18 and wounding 59. Administration officials denounced the attack as a direct repudiation of President Johnson’s speech of August 19, in which he appealed to the North Vietnamese to respond favorably to...
1972
Delegates entering the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach are harassed by 3,000 antiwar demonstrators, many painted with death masks. The rest of the convention is marked by demonstrations outside the meeting hall; hundreds of protestors are arrested and many are injured when police use riot-control agents.
World War I
1914
On August 22, 1914, as French and German forces face off on the Western Front during the opening month of the First World War, the isolated encounters of the previous day move into full-scale battle in the forests of the Ardennes and at Charleroi, near the junction of the Sambre...
World War II
1944
On this day in 1944, Soviet forces break through to Jassy, in northeastern Romania, convincing Romania’s king to sign an armistice with the Allies and concede control of his country to the USSR.
As early as 1937, Romania had come under control of a fascist government that bore great resemblance to...
