ON THIS DATE...

[2SILLI_4U]

AUGUST 13

• 1960: The first two-way telephone conversation by satellite took place with the help of Echo 1.
• 1961: Berlin was divided as East Germany sealed off the border between the city's eastern and western sectors and began building a wall in order to halt the flight of refugees.

AUGUST 14

• 1900: International forces, including U.S. Marines, entered Beijing to put down the Boxer Rebellion, which was aimed at purging China of foreign influence.
• 1935: President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law.

AUGUST 15

• 1057: Macbeth, King of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain.
• 1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York.

AUGUST 16

• 1812: Detroit fell to British and Indian forces in the War of 1812.
• 1977: Elvis Presley died at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tenn., at age 42.

AUGUST 17

• 1896: A prospecting party discovered gold in Canada's Yukon territory, a finding that touched off the Klondike gold rush.
• 1969: 256 people were killed as Hurricane Camille slammed into the Gulf Coast.

AUGUST 18

• 1920: The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the right of all American women to vote, was ratified as Tennessee became the 36th state to approve it.
• 1963: James Meredith became the first black student to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

AUGUST 19

• 1960: A tribunal in Moscow convicted American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers of espionage.
• 1991: Soviet hard-liners announced to a shocked world that President Mikhail S. Gorbachev had been removed from power. (The coup collapsed two days later.)

AUGUST 20

• 1920: Pioneering American radio station 8MK in Detroit (later WWJ) began daily broadcasting.
• 1964: President Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act, a nearly $1 billion anit-poverty measure.

AUGUST 21

• 1831: Former slave Nat Turner led a violent insurrection in Virginia. (He was later executed.)
• 1940: Exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky died in Mexico City from wounds inflicted by an assassin the day before.

AUGUST 22

• 1485: England's King Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bossworth Field, ending the War of the Roses.
• 1910: Japan annexed Korea, which remained under Japanese colonial rule until 1945.

AUGUST 23

• 1914: Japan declared war against Germany in World War I.
• 1973: A bank robbery-turned-hostage standoff began in Stockholm, Sweden; by the time the crisis ended, the four hostages had comet to empathize with their captors, an occurrence now referred to as "Stockholm Syndrome."

AUGUST 24

• A.D. 79: Long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in ash and killing an estimated 20,000 people.
• 1992: Hurricane Andrew smashed into Florida, causing $30 billion in damage and killing 43 in the U.S.

AUGUST 25

• 1944: During World War II, Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation.
• 1958: President Eisenhower signed a measure providing pensions for former U.S. presidents and their widows.

AUGUST 26

• 55: Roman forces under Julius Caesar invaded Britian, but achieved limited success.
• 1920: The 19th Amendment to the U.S. constitution, guaranteeing American women the right to vote, was certified in effect by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby.