Today In History...

In 1851 Issac Singer is granted a patent for the sewing machine.
In 1856 The first U.S. patent for an accordion is issued to Anthony Fass.
In 1867 President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him when he defies Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
In 1877 Thomas Edison invents the sound recording with his Edison phone.
In 1898 Hawaii is formally annexed to the United States.
In 1898 The peace protocol ending the Spanish-American War is signed.
In 1915 "Of Human Bondage," by William Somerset Maugham is published.
In 1923 K. Reinmuth discovers the 1,000th asteroid, "Giuseppe Piazzi."
In 1934 Babe Ruth plays his final game at Fenway Park, 41,766 on hand.
In 1936 Diver Marjorie Gestring becomes the youngest Olympic gold medalist at age 13.
In 1941 French Marshal Henri Petain calls on his countrymen to give full support to Nazi Germany.
In 1944 Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the eldest son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, is killed with his co-pilot when their explosives-laden Navy plane blew up over England.
In 1953 Ann Davidson is the first woman to sail solo across Atlantic.
In 1953 The Soviet Union conducts a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.
In 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower raises the minimum wage from 75 cents to $1.00 an hour.
In 1959 The first Polaris missile is fired on Observation Island.
In 1960 Echo I, the first balloon satellite, is launched by the U.S. from Cape Canaveral.
In 1962 One day after launching Andrian Nikolayev into orbit, the Soviet Union sends up cosmonaut Pavel Popovich. Both land safely August 15.
In 1972 The last American combat ground troops leave Vietnam.
In 1977 The Space Shuttle Enterprise passes its first solo flight test by taking off atop a Boeing 747 and touching down in the Mojave Desert.
In 1978 Pope Paul VI, who had died August 6 at age 80, is buried in St. Peter's Basilica.
In 1982 The sitcom "Mork & Mindy," starring Robin Williams, airs for the last time on ABC-TV.
In 1985 The world's worst single-aircraft disaster occurs as a crippled Japan Boeing 747 crashes into a mountain, killing 520 people.
In 1986 NASA announces a new rocket design for the space shuttle to correct the flaws believed responsible for the Challenger accident.
In 1987 President Reagan addresses the nation on the Iran-Contra affair, saying his former national security adviser, John Poindexter, was wrong not to have told him about the diversion of Iran arms-sale money.
In 1988 The controversial movie "The Last Temptation of Christ," directed by Martin Scorsese, opens in nine cities despite objections by some Christians who felt the film was sacrilegious.
In 1990 Air Force Staff Sgt. John Campisi of West Covina, CA, is hit by a military truck in Saudi Arabia and becomes the first U.S. casualty of the Gulf War.
In 1991 A letter from Lebanese kidnappers was made public offering to trade the release of Western hostages for the freedom of "all detainees" worldwide.
In 1991 The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, begins hosting a two-day reunion of former Negro League players.
In 1992 After 14 months of negotiations, the U.S., Mexico and Canada announce in Washington that they had concluded the North American Free Trade Agreement.
In 1994 In baseball's eighth work stoppage since 1972, players go on strike rather than allowing team owners to limit salaries.
In 1996 The Republican Party opens its 36th national convention in San Diego, California.
In 1997 Steel workers approve a contract ending 10-month strike against Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp., ending the longest walkout in modern history against major steel company.
In 1998 Swiss banks agree to pay $1.25 billion as restitution to Holocaust victims.
In 2000 The Russian nuclear submarine Kursk and its 118-man crew are lost during naval exercises in the Barents Sea.
In 2000 Evander Holyfield wins a 12-round unanimous decision over John Ruiz in Las Vegas for the vacant WBA heavyweight title.
In 2000 Actress Loretta Young dies at age 87.
In 2001 A suicide bomber blows himself up on the patio of a restaurant near the Israeli coastal town of Haifa, killing and wounding 21 people.
In 2002 Iraq's information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf tells Al-Jazeera that it was a "lie" that Saddam Hussein still had weapons of mass destruction.

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