This day in history...

On August 18, 1920 the Tennessee General Assembly, taking its 3rd vote on the issue, votes to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving the measure the necessary states' approval to become the law of the land. One week later, Congress will formally give women in the U.S. the right to vote. The measure had failed in the first two Tennessee ballots by one vote, but on the third try, 24-year old Assemblyman Febb E. Burn, supposedly swayed by a note from his mother that read in part "Vote for suffrage and don't keep them in doubt.....don't forget to be a good boy," changed his vote despite pressure from his constituency to vote nay.

On August 18, 1227, Genghis Khan, leader of the Mongol Empire, dies of injuries suffered when he fell from his horse several months earlier. His age is estimated to have been in the 60's. His empire building began in his teens, with a campaign to recover his kidnapped wife from a rival tribe. At its height, Khan's empire spanned most of Central Asia, including much of what is now Russia, northern China, and parts of India, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. (this got me in the mood to post the following)


On August 18, 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest during a coup by high-ranking members of his own government, military and police forces. Since becoming President, Gorbachev's policies had greatly improved Soviet relations with the west, and encouraged free market capitalism within the USSR. The hardliners believed the policies were degrading the Soviet Union, and - led by former vice president Gennady Yanayev - made their move. Gorbachev was arrested at his vacation villa in the Crimea, and the hardliners moved on the Kremlin. Three days of public demonstrations followed, led by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who believed Gorbachev's reforms weren't moving fast enough, and the movement collapsed.

 

On August 19, 1960, Francis Gary Powers, a pilot in the employ of the CIA, is sentenced by the Soviet Union to 10 years in prison for espionage. Powers was shot down in his U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over the Ural Mountains and arrested on May 1. The incident was a foreign relations black eye for the US. Powers spent 18 months in a Russian prison before being released in exchange for a captured KGB spy.


On August 19, 1944, the French Forces of the Interior - the military arm of the French Resistance - stages an uprising against the German garrison in Paris. The liberation of the French capital from the Nazi occupation is 6 days away.


On August 19, 1912, the American frigate USS Constitution defeats the British frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia. Witnesses say they watched British cannonballs bounce off the side of the oaken American frigate as if she were made of iron. The story spreads and the Constitution continues to win battles and a nickname, "Old Ironsides."


On August 19, 1909, the first race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Designed as a facility to test cars built in Indiana's rapidly growing auto industry, its builders also planned to stage races on the 2 and a half mile track on occasion. Louis Schwitzer wins the first race, but the track surface of crushed rock and tar breaks up under the pressure, directly causing the deaths of six people. Before the end of the year, IMS owners will resurface the track with 3.2 million paving bricks., leading to the track earning the nickname "The Brickyard." But the public still doesn't show great interest in frequent short races on the track, and owners decide in 1911 to limit competition to a single annual event on Memorial Day weekend, at a brutal distance of 500 miles. (Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the brick paving process)

 

On August 20, 1619, about 20 Angolans kidnapped by Portuguese arrive at the Colony of Virginia and are sold to English colonists there. Although scholars say they were "indentured servants" - people sold into labor with no pay for a specific time, but with the expectation of freedom at the end of the contract - by the definition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Angolans are the first people sold into slavery on the North American continent.

On August 20, 1940, exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is attacked by an axe-wielding Spanish communist in Mexico City. Trotsky, who had been arrested for revolutionary activities in 1898 but escaped exile in Siberia in 1900, dies of his injuries the next day. Historians believe the killer, who was sentenced to 20 year in prison, was an agent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, though he denied any connection to the killer.


On August 20, 1882, in a tent next to an unfinished Catholic cathedral in Moscow, Pietr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducts the premiere performance of his Year 1812 Solemn Overture. Commissioned by Tsar Alexander I to commemorate the Russian defeat of Napoleon, the performance requires, in addition to a standard orchestra, a carillon (musically tuned bells) and an artillery battery, which will fire 16 shots in the final moments of the 15-minute piece. Tchaikovsky confided to a patron before the performance that he did not consider himself a writer of festival music, and wrote the piece "without warmth or love", but promised it would be "very loud." Today, The 1812 Overture is considered one of the Russian nation's most patriotic pieces of music. It became U.S. Independence Day tradition in 1974, when the Boston Pops became the first American symphony to perform the piece as accompaniment to fireworks. (the final moments of the Overture, with artillery and tubular bells replacing the carillon, performed by the National Symphony in 2014)


On August 20, 1920, seven men, legendary athlete Jim Thorpe and the owners of four Ohio-based football clubs among them, meet in an automobile dealership in Canton, OH. They emerge from the meeting as founders of the American Professional Football Conference, with Thorpe as the organization's president. In 1922, they will rename the organization the National Football League.

 

August 21, 1863 is the most violent day of the Kansas-Missouri Border War. Civil unrest and guerilla violence had been ongoing between residents of Missouri, a slave state, and the Kansas Territory, which was still undecided on the issue, since 1854. Much of the violence was brought against Kansas abolitionist settlements by Missouri guerillas led by William Quantrill. Earlier in the month, Union troops attacked Quantrill's camp and arrested several of the men's wives and sisters, but an accident on August 14 led to the deaths of 5 of the women. In response, Quantrill assembled a band of more than 450 guerillas, including Jesse and Frank James (and Rooster Cogburn, according to True Grit) and attacked Lawrence, Kansas, where they killed 182 men in front of their families and burned much of the town to the ground. After fleeing the territory in October, Quantrill's band split into several groups and continued guerilla tactics against Union troops throughout the western portion of the country. He was caught in an ambush in Kentucky and killed June 6, 1865 (age 27), two months after Lee's surrender.


On August 21, 1959, the United States of America establishes its current borders, as President Eisenhower signs the proclamation admitting the Hawaiian Islands as the 50th state.


On August 21, 1920, Daphne Milne, wife of English author A.A. Milne, gives birth to the couple's only child, a son they name Christopher Robin. Over the first few years of his life, Christopher Robin accumulated a small collection of stuffed animals, starting with a bear he received for his first birthday. In 1926, Milne publishes a series of children's stories he wrote about his son and his come-to-life collection, Winnie-the-Pooh. A second collection, The House at Pooh Corner, follows in 1928. Sales of the two books exceed 50 million. (left: A.A. and Christopher Robin along with Growler, the stuffed bear that inspired Winnie-the-Pooh right: Christopher Robin's stuff toys that inspired Pooh, Tigger, Eyeore and Kanga (Christopher Robin lost Roo at age 9), now permanently displayed in the main branch of the New York Public Library.)

 

On August 22, 1864, The Geneva Convention 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 and provided for the neutrality of medical personnel. It also proposed the use of an international emblem to mark medical personnel and supplies. In honor of Dunant’s nationality, a red cross on a white background—the Swiss flag in reverse—was chosen. The organization became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross. In 1901, Dunant was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize.


On August 22, 1962, a French paramilitary faction called the Organisation Arme'e Secrete' (Secret Army Organization) makes an attempt on the life of French President Charles de Gaulle, whom they believe has betrayed France by granting Algeria its freedom. 12 OAS gunmen open fire on de Gaulle's 1955 Citroen DS, perhaps the most advanced car built in France at the time, and known in particular for its innovative suspension. An estimated 140 bullets strike the car, exploding all 4 tires, but the chauffeur is able to maintain control and race de Gaulle and his wife to safety. De Gaulle credits the car's handling for his salvation; in his remaining years he would take action twice to keep ownership of Citroen in French hands, even approving government funding to keep the company solvent and finance a merger with Peugot in 1975.


On August 22, 1989, Texas Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan blows a 96-mph fastball by Rickey Henderson of the Oakland A's for the 5,000th strikeout of his career. Ryan would retire with 5,714 career strikeouts; no one else has topped the 5K mark, and the current active leader, Justin Verlander, only recently passed 3,000.

 

On August 23, 1989, Major League Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti bans Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose from baseball for life. The game's all time hits leader and a surefire first ballot Hall of Famer, Rose was also a known sports gambler during his playing career, but most looked the other way as he limited his gambling to other sports. But rumors began to surface in the late 80's that Rose was betting on baseball. Giamatti hired Washington attorney John Dowd to investigate, and Dowd compiled hundreds of hours of testimony to support the claims, including bets on games involving his own team. Rose denied the latter but agreed to the ban, and it wasn't until writing a book in 2004 that Rose admitted to betting on (but never against) the Reds.


On August 23, 1814, First Lady Dolley Madison scans the horizon with a spyglass from the White House and sees British troops assembling. The day before, President James Madison had gone into the field to consult with his generals, and asks Dolley to assemble important documents and be prepared to evacuate. Now, with the enemy approaching, Dolley exasperates her friend and staff by declining to save personal possessions, and instead concentrates on removing the official portrait of George Washington from its frame, saying she would not allow British troops to desecrate the famed portrait. Giving the portrait to two friends who bring it to New York for safekeeping (and unaware that the portrait is only a copy, not the original, of Gilbert Stuart's portrait) Dolley flees to a predetermined location to meet up with her husband. The British arrive the next day and burn the White House, causing significant damage.

 

On August 24, 1891, Thomas Edison is awarded a patent for his kinetographic camera, the first motion picture camera.