On August 3, 1975, the Louisiana Superdome officially opens with a preseason NFL game between the Saints and the Houston Oilers (I was there). Opened 4 years behind schedule and at more than 3 times its original projected cost, the Superdome was the brainchild of New Orleans sports mover-and-shaker David Dixon. 45 years after its opening, the building still boasts the world's largest fixed dome roof. In its history, the Superdome has hosted 7 Super Bowls, 5 NCAA men's basketball Final Fours, 4 BCS National College Football championship games (and several unofficial NC's connected with the Sugar Bowl), major league exhibition baseball, 2 heavyweight boxing championships (including the infamous Leonard-Duran "no mas" fight), the AAU Junior Olympics, the US national gymnastics championships, numerous professional wrestling events, including 2 Wrestlemanias, hundreds of rock, country, r&b and jazz concerts, including a 1981 Rolling Stones concert that drew a world record crowd of 87,000 (I was there), the 1988 Republican National Convention, and a 1987 convocation with Pope John Paul II that drew more than 80,000. In 2016, the Superdome was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
On August 4, 1944, Nazi Gestapo operating in Amsterdam capture 8 Jews hiding in a sealed off area of a warehouse, including 15-year old Anne Frank. All are sent to concentration camps; Anne would die of typhoid in Bergen-Belsen the following February. Of the 8, only Anne's father Otto would survive. On his return to Amsterdam, one of the Christians who helped hide them handed Otto his daughter Anne's diary, found undisturbed in the hiding place. She had kept it since her 13th birthday; the last entry dated August 1, 1944. Otto would have The Diary of Anne Frank published in 1947; it would be an instant best seller and has since been published in more than 70 languages. On August 4, 1936, American Jesse Owens wins his second gold medal of the Summer Olympics in Berlin, winning the long jump. Owens would win 4 gold medals at the '36 Olympics, severely embarrassing German Chancellor Adolph Hitler, who had declared that the Games would demonstrate the "superiority of the Aryan master race." On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden, a wealthy, elderly couple living in Fall River, Massachusetts, are found hacked to death in their home. The murder weapon, a bloody hatchet was found in the basement. Suspicion immediately fell on Andrew's 32-year old daughter by his first marriage, Lizzie, who was known to despise her stepmother. Her trial received national attention, but as local authorities did not trust the newfangled technique of fingerprinting, they were unable to conclusively tie Lizzie to the murder weapon. With only circumstantial evidence, Lizzie was acquitted, though she never escaped the cloud of suspicion surrounding the murders. On August 4, 1821, the first issue of The Saturday Evening Post is published, its first issue being printed on the same printing press on which Benjamin Franklin published the Pennsylvania Gazette. At its height, the Post, with a content base similar to today's Reader's Digest, would be the most widely circulated periodical in America, and lifted numerous writers and artists to fame, most notably Norman Rockwell, whose paintings were featured on the Post's cover 321 times. Today the Saturday Evening Post is published 6 times a year. (below: one of Rockwell's WWII era Post covers.)
On August 5, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln signs the Revenue Act, imposing the first federal income tax. It is a flat tax of 3 percent on annual incomes over $800 (about $22,000 in today's dollars). Congress repealed Lincoln’s tax law in 1871. On August 5, 1963, the US, USSR and Great Britain sign the first Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, banning the testing of nuclear weapons underwater, in the atmosphere or in outer space. On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fires the first of more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who refused to end their 2-day old strike. About 13,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association walked off the job on August 3 for pay raises and better hours. The president immediately declared the strike illegal, arguing the ATC's were federal employees, and threatened to fire those who did not return to work. Those who refused were not only fired, but were banned from ever being rehired by the FAA. In October, the Federal Labor Relations Authority would decertify PATCO. I'm including this one just to use the picture....On August 5, 2002, marine salvage experts recover the turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor off the coast of Cape Hattaras, North Carolina. The Monitor was the U.S. Navy ship involved in the historic March, 1862 battle with the C.S.S. Virginia (Merrimack) in history's first battle of ironclad warships. The battle was a draw, and the Monitor, designed for shallow water operations, was lost in December in moderate seas while sailing for action in southern waters. The recovery assembly seen in the photo was designed and built by a fabricator here in Morgan City.
On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signs the Voter Rights Act, designed to eliminate obstacles placed in front of black Americans to illegally prevent them from voting. On August 6, 1890 at Auburn Prison in New York, convicted murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electrocution. The electric chair was proposed by New York dentist Albert Southwick as a humane and "painless" alternative to death by hanging. Auburn Prison's first chair was designed and built by its onsite electrician, and varies little from electric chairs used today, but the first execution was far from humane. It took two shocks with a total duration of more than 2 minutes to kill Kemmler, and the autopsy found the electrode attached to his back burned all the way to his spine. Southwick called the procedure a step towards "a higher civilization." Electrical pioneer George Westinghouse observed, "They could have done better with an axe." On August 6, 1930, New York Supreme Court Justice Joseph F. Crater disappears while walking the streets of Manhattan. Judge Crater was known to have political enemies, and an affinity for showgirls. The day before he disappeared, Crater's law clerk said the judge destroyed some of his court documents, moved others to his apartment in the city, and withdrew $5,000 from his bank account. After having dinner in a restaurant with friends in the city, he was last seen walking towards Times Square, ostensibly on the way to see a Broadway show. It was more than a month before his disappearance was reported, and the search became a national preoccupation; for a time, the phrase "pulling a crater" was commonly used to indicate someone in hiding. At his wife's request, Crater was declared dead in 1939. Documents uncovered in 2005 suggested Crater was the subject of a murder conspiracy, and that his body was buried under the Coney Island boardwalk where the New York Aquarium was later built. August 6, 1945, Hiroshima. I didn't forget it. It was done here one year ago today.
On August 7, 1942, the U.S. Marines 1st Division launches Operation Watchtower, the invasion of 4 islands of the Solomons, the largest being Guadalcanal. Intelligence had learned that the Japanese were constructing an airbase on Guadalcanal, from which they could have threatened vital shipping between the U.S. and Australia (below, photographed a month before the invasion). Within 48 hours of the invasion's beginning, the Navy support fleet will withdraw over concern that its aircraft carriers are in danger. The fleet leaves having offloaded only about half of the supplies needed for the invasion. As a result, the Marines, once they capture the incomplete airfield, will complete it using captured equipment, while eating captured rations, and in some instances even using captured weapons in their defense. On August 7, 1998, terrorist detonate truck bombs outside the U.S. embassies of Kenya and Tanzania. The casualty count is 224 dead, including 12 Americans, and more than 4,500 wounded. On August 7, 1782, General George Washington creates the Badge for Military Merit, to be given to soldiers for any "singular meritorious action." The badge consists of a heart-shape purple cloth lined in silver, with the word "merit" stitched across the heart. It will be awarded only 3 times before it falls into disuse. In 1931, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas McArthur begins a campaign to reinstitute the Badge of Merit in time for the 200th anniversary of Washington's birthday. On February 22, 1932, the War Department establishes The Order of the Purple Heart, to be awarded to any serviceman wounded in combat, or to prisoners abused at the hands of the enemy. The new award looks similar to the Badge of Merit, with gold lining rather than silver, Washington's image replacing the word "merit", and Washington's family coat of arms added. On August 7, 1947, Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft captained by Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl with a crew of five, completes a 4,300-mile, 101-day journey from Peru to Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago, near Tahiti. Heyerdahl wanted to prove his theory that prehistoric South Americans could have colonized the Polynesian islands by drifting on ocean currents. The raft is now on display in a museum in Oslo, Norway.
On August 8, 1988, Chicago's Wrigley Field becomes the last major league stadium to host its first night game. Every other stadium had been lit for night games since 1948. On August 8, 1863, General Robert E. Lee submits his letter of resignation of command of the Army of Northern Virginia to Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. In addition to accepting failure of the campaign that led to defeat at Gettysburg a month earlier, Lee was in the early stages of the heart disease that would take his life in 1870. Davis refused his resignation, saying that finding a more capable commander "would be an impossibility." On August 8, 1942 in Washington D.C., the U.S. government executes 6 Germans for spying. Earlier in the year, German Intelligence began planning to infiltrate small teams into the U.S. to sabotage targets of military interest, as well as Jewish-owned businesses. The first team of 4 came ashore from a submarine on Long Island on June 12 and was spotted within minutes, but managed to evade capture for more than a month. The second team of 4 came ashore near Jacksonville, Florida a month later. They were eventually betrayed to the FBI by the mission leader and arrested in late July. As the group had committed no acts of sabotage as planned, all charges against them related spying. The mission leader and one other were spared the electric chair for providing information on the others and imprisoned until 1948, when they were allowed to return to Germany.
On August 9, 1974, Gerald R. Ford is sworn in as President of the United States, moments after Richard Nixon's resignation became official. Two months earlier, Ford, the House Minority Leader, was appointed and confirmed as Vice President following the resignation of Spiro Agnew. As such, Ford became the first (and only) president to take office through appointment rather than election. On August 9, 1936, 23-year old Jesse Owens wins his 4th gold medal of the Summer Olympics in Berlin, as part of the 4x100 meter team. As was the case with each of his 3 previous wins, Owens was denied the honor of being personally congratulated by German chancellor Adolph Hitler, and the accepted narrative says Hitler snubbed Owens because he was black. It was unclear whether Hitler's omission after Owens' first gold was a snub (the high jump competition was a triple slap at "Aryan supremacy", as 3 black Americans swept the medals), but afterward Olympic officials asked Hitler to either publicly greet all winners or none. He chose the latter, although he continued to personally congratulate German gold medalists in private. (Owens salutes the flag during his long jump medal ceremony. Note German bronze medalist Lutz Long on the right displaying the Nazi salute) On August 9, 1995, the leader of the Grateful Dead joins the real dead. Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist and leader of the legendary '60s and '70s pop group, dies of a heart attack in a California drug rehab facility. He was 57 years old. (1969 photo)
On August 10, 1776, word reaches London that the 13 English colonies in the Americas have drafted and agreed on a formal Declaration of Independence. Up to this point, the problems in the colonies had been seen as a minor uprising, focused only in Massachusetts. On August 10, 1945, one day after the city of Nagasaki became the second Japanese city to suffer an atomic bomb, the Japanese government transmits a message to its embassies in Switzerland and Sweden to be passed on to the Allies: Japan agrees to surrender. On August 10, 1978, a 1973 Ford Pinto is involved in a fatal collision on a highway near Indianapolis. Its not the first time passengers in a Pinto have died after their car was rear-ended and caught fire, but the nature of the victims in this crash - three teenage sisters - brings the problem national attention. Ford had actually begun recalling all Pintos, along with a sister vehicle, the Mercury Bobcat, over its "catastrophic design flaw" - the gas tank sat behind the rear axle, making it susceptible to fire in a rear end collision, but the recall notice did not reach the Erlich family before it lost its children. A grand jury would indict the Ford Motor Company on three counts of reckless homicide - the first time in American history a corporation is so charged - but the trial resulted in a not guilty verdict. However, a civil jury hearing another case involving a fatal Pinto crash in California would award the survivors $6.6 million. Ford would discontinue the Pinto model in 1980. (below, rear view of the '73 Pinto of the model in which the Erlich sisters died)
