On August 16, 1841, supporters of the proposed Bank of the United States burn an effigy of President John Tyler in front of the White House, after Tyler veto'd Congress' vote to re-establish the Bank. The Bank of the U.S. had been established in 1791 during Washington's term, but Presidents Jefferson and Madison began eroding the Bank's influence (finally dissolving it in 1811), believing it to be an "unconstitutional" institution. Several presidents attempted unsuccessfully to revive the Bank, ending with Tyler, who had supported renewing the Bank as a Senator during the Jackson Administration. But he did a 180 as president, igniting one of the most violent incidents of civil unrest in D.C. history. Rioters - many of whom were members of Tyler's Whig Party - fired guns in the air and threw rocks at the White House, before first hanging and then burning an effigy of Tyler. The incident led to the establishment of the D.C. police force. On August 16, 1920, Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray "Chappie" Chapman is hit in the head by a pitch from the Yankees' Carl May. Chapman - who was not wearing the optional batting helmet - went down but got to his feet and staggered to the dugout, but crumpled again moments later and was hospitalized. He died the next day, the only time a major league player has died as the direct result of a hit-by-pitch. Chapman was likely hit by a spitball, which was legal at the time and for which May was known. He was also known for throwing at batters' heads, but despite calls for his ban from baseball after the Chapman incident, he was not disciplined. May voluntarily benched himself for 10 days. Chapman's death would lead to the spitball being banned following the '20 season, but batting helmets would not become mandatory for another 50 years.
On August 17, 1862, the Dakota uprising claims hundreds of lives in Minnesota. Better known as the Sioux, the Dakota tribes had seen their traditional lands overrun by white settlers. Natural causes severely damaged their crops in the summer of '62, leading some tribal members to begin stealing from the white settlements. One such excursion on August 17 led to a confrontation that saw several Dakotas kill 5 settlers. Upon learning of the incident and fearing reprisals, Dakota leaders decided to gain the upper hand with attacks on several settlements. About 500 settlers and 150 Dakota were killed. Within weeks, the military arrested about 2,000 Dakotas and about 300 were sentenced to death, although President Lincoln commuted the sentences of all but a few dozen. On August 17, 1979, Monty Python's Life of Brian premieres in American theaters. The English comedy troupe's portrayal of a Jew born on the same night as (and one stable over from) Jesus, and who as a young man is mistaken for the Messiah, was well received by film critics. Religious and civil authorities were less impressed, as the film was criticized as blasphemous and banned throughout much of the UK and several European countries. The "Pythons" - especially John Cleese - have defended the film over the years, saying it lampoons the behavior of religious fanatics and not Christianity, though Eric Idle once conceded in an interview that he considered Brian "heretical." Nevertheless, Life of Brian has appeared on numerous "Funniest movies" and "Best British films" lists, and one scene in particular is uncanny for its parody of what is now a real phenomenon. (below)
On August 21, 1859, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas and former Illinois representative Abraham Lincoln engage in the first of seven public debates on the issue of slavery. Held in conjunction with the race for Douglas' Senate seat, Douglas took the stance that slavery was a states-rights issue in each debate while Lincoln argued that slavery not be allowed to spread beyond its current expanse. The Lincoln-Douglas debates are often considered America's first national media event, as the content of all seven were transcribed and published around the country. Most scholars judge Lincoln to have won the debates, though Douglas won the election. A year later, the two faced each other on the campaign trail again, this time for the Presidency. Lincoln won with help from a split Democratic Party ticket between Douglas and Southerner John C. Breckenridge.
On August 22, 1776, British general William Howe lands on Long Island with a force of about 20,000 men. Their assignment was to capture New York City and gain control of the Hudson River. Five days later, Howe attacked George Washington's forces at Brooklyn Heights, forcing Washington to retreat. Howe did not, however, storm the Heights themselves, missing an opportunity to capture most of the rebellion's best officers, and perhaps Washington himself. Howe hoped the defeat would convince the rebels to surrender; he was wrong. He captured NYC on Sept. 15 and held it for the duration of the Revolutionary War. On August 22, 1965, one of the ugliest incidents in baseball history occurs. The San Francisco Giants' Juan Marichal was one of the 60's top pitchers but also one of the decades' most volatile personalities, a guy who was not above throwing at batters. The Giants were in a pennant race with their hated rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and hosting the Dodgers when Marichal came to bat, facing Dodger ace Sandy Koufax. After the second pitch of the at bat, catcher John Roseboro nearly grazed Marichal 's head with the throwback to the mound (he later admitted it was intentional, wanting to send Marichal a message while keeping Koufax from getting involved). Marichal turned and hit Roseboro with his bat, taking a second swing as umpire Shag Crawford attempted to separate them. A bench clearing, 14-minute standoff ensued resulting in multiple players ejected, and Roseboro and Crawford needing medical attention. Marichal received a fine and an 8-game suspension. Ironically, he and Roseboro later became good friends; when Roseboro died in 2002, Marichal served him as a pallbearer.
On August 23, 1914, British and German forces clash for control of the Mons Canal in Belgium. It was the first time British troops fought on the European continent since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. German and French troops had been battling for three days before the British Expeditionary Force - about 35,000 men - joined the fray under overall French command. The movements of the British and French troops were not well-coordinated, but the British, though outnumbered 2-to-1, held their positions for about 6 hours before their French commander ordered a retreat. In subsequent months, the heroism of the British stance grew to mythic proportions in the eyes of the home population, one legend even spreading that an angel with a flaming sword appeared on the battleground to cover the retreat. On August 23, 1926, silent screen film star Rudolph Valentino dies from a ruptured stomach ulcer. Born Rodolfo Gugliemi in Italy in 1895, Rudolph emigrated to America in 1913 and held various odd jobs until moving to Hollywood in 1917. He found film work as a dancer and was soon landing villain roles due to his stereotypical Latin good looks. A scene in the 1921 film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in which Valentino danced a tango made him an overnight sensation, and he was soon landing leading man roles in romantic dramas. News of his death reportedly led to dozens of suicide attempts by young women around the country. Valentino was Hollywood's first sex symbol, and a number of anonymous women left roses on his crypt for decades on the anniversary of his death. On August 23, 1947, Maynard beats Lock Haven 16-7 to win the first Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. It's hardly a "world series"; 11 of the 12 teams in the 3-day tournament are from Pennsylvania and the 12th is from New Jersey. But it grew quickly to truly earn the name...by the early 1960's, teams from Mexico, Canada, Europe and Asia were participating. A Mexican entry became the first non-U.S. team to win the championship in 1957. Today, 10 regional tournaments in the U.S. and 8 international tournaments determine the 8 teams that will travel to Williamsport to participate in the tournament.
On August 24, 1821, the Treaty of Cordoba officially recognizes Mexico's independence from Spain. The struggle for Mexican independence was a series of uprisings over the previous 11 years that began when Napoleon's occupation of Spain weakened Spanish influence in the Americas. Eventually, a conservative movement called the Royalists negotiated the agreement for independence that gave Mexicans of Spanish descent equal rights to pure Spaniards and established privileges for the Catholic Church. The Treaty of Cordoba established Mexico as a constitutional monarchy with AgustÃn de Iturbide (below), leader of the Royalist faction, as emperor. His reign was short lived; Santa Ana and Guadalupe Victoria overthrew Iturbide in 1823 and established a republican government with Victoria as its head. On August 24, 1572, the St. Bartholomew Day's Massacre sets off a religious civil war in France.The massacre was instigated by Catherine de Medici (below), queen mother of King Charles IX, who convinced her son that the Huguenot (French Protestant) minority was on the verge of rebellion. Catherine had orchestrated an attempt on the life of Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny just two days before, and the angry response of Huguenots in Paris was enough to sway Charles. He drew up a list of prominent Huguenots in the city to be killed, including Coligny, and when the assassinations began on the 24th, Catholics in the city quickly followed the king's lead and began assaulting Huguenots on the streets. Charles had a quick change of heart and issued a decree to stop the violence a day later, but it was too late. By October, about 3,000 Huguenots in Paris and 70,000 nationwide were dead. On August 24, 1873, William Henry Jackson takes the first photos of the fabled Mount of the Holy Cross in Colorado. Rumors had swirled for years among Western pioneers of a cross of snow that would sometimes appear in the Rocky Mountains. Jackson, a noted wilderness photographer who had been accompanying wagon trains to California for a decade and took the first photos of the Yellowstone region, resolved to photograph the Holy Cross. Luck was on his expedition's side and he quickly found the Cross. After taking the photograph seen below, he trekked closer and realized it was a simple 90 degree intersection of two natural ravines that, during periods of heavy snowfall, collected enough snow to form the cross until the late summer thaw. The Mount is one of Colorado's "fourteeners" (14,000 feet or more in elevation) and is the highest point in Eagle County. It is part of a designated U.S. Wilderness Area.
On August 28, 1957, Strom Thurmond breaks the U.S. Senate's individual filibuster record. The word filibuster is rooted in the Dutch language and is a reference to piracy. Its been applied in a political sense to indicate an attempt to delay legislative procedure for hundreds of years, and in fact, a notation in the personal diary of Senator William Maclay indicates that it has been employed by American lawmakers since the very first session of Congress. Often, multiple legislators band together to hijack debate on an issue, but on 8/28/57, Thurmond (D-SC) was a one-man disruption. Attempting to delay a vote on the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Thurmond spoke for 24 hours, 18 minutes in a monologue that included his reciting George Washington's Farewell Address to the Troops verbatim. Thurmond's tactic angered even fellow Southern Democrats, who had accepted a compromise in the bill and agreed not to filibuster. On August 28, 1867, the United States takes formal possession of Kauihelani and Pihemanu, the northernmost of the Hawaiian Islands. The two tiny islands surrounded by an atoll had been first seen by western sailors less than a decade before; they called the location Middlebrook Islands at the time. Shortly after possession (which consisted of the Navy landing a party there), the site was renamed Midway Atoll, for its location almost exactly between North America and Asia. It was little more than a telegraph relay station for the next 75 years, but when Pan American Airlines established a re-fueling station there in 1935, its importance was suddenly clear. A Congressional committee would soon name Midway second in importance only to Pearl Harbor among the nation's possessions in the Pacific. It was, of course, the site of the victory that was the turning point of WWII in the Pacific in 1942. Obsolete as a military base today, Midway Atoll is now a National Monument and National Wildlife Refuge while officially remaining property of the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains the islands, which can only be visited for official purposes. (Satellite photo of Midway) On August 28, 1898, New Bern, NC drug store owner Caleb Bradham rebrands "Brad's Drink." Bradham was a college dropout who bought his drug store - which, like most drug stores of the time, included a soda fountain - in 1893. He began experimenting and came up with a combination of koala nut extract, vanilla and "assorted oils" to flavor his soda water. In 1898 he decided to market Brad's Drink as a digestive aid, and - coining the name from the pepsin enzyme that occurs naturally in the digestive system, called his drink "Pepsi-cola." By the early 1920's he was distributing Pepsi in 24 states, but the exorbitant price of sugar in the post-WWI era bankrupted him, and he sold the Pepsi-Cola Company to a holding firm and returned to the pharmacy business full-time. Pepsi, meanwhile, actually thrived through the Great Depression thanks in part to one of the most successful radio ad campaigns of all time (YouTube link below) and has since grown to become the second best selling soft drink in the world, behind Coca-Cola.
On September 20, 1973 (50 years ago today), 30-year old American folk/rock singer Jim Croce dies in a plane crash just outside Natchitoches, LA. Croce had just completed a concert at the town's Northwestern State University and was flying to another concert in Texas when his plane hit a tree just after takeoff from the Municipal Airport. The pilot and 4 others aboard were also killed; the FAA blamed the crash on visual impairment due to fog. Born in Philadelphia to Italian parents, Croce did a brief tour in 'Nam with the National Guard and travelled the country working odd jobs for much of the latter half of the '60's; some of those experiences would inspire songs when his music career finally took off in the '70's. One of his most successful singles, "I Got A Name", was released the day after his death. He had one number one single, "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and his final album, Time In A Bottle, reached number one on the pop charts after his death. IMO, his single "Operator" (below) is about the best piece of musical storytelling ever recorded. Jim Croce - Operator -HD - YouTube
On October 3, 1993, the "Black Hawk Down" incident occurs. The U.N was in the midst of Operation Restore Hope, the mission to secure food supplies in war-torn Somalia. Local warlords fought the U.N. at every opportunity, and on 10/3, the U.S. Army attempted to insert Rangers into the capital city of Mogadishu to capture two of the more combatant warlords in a combined ground and air assault. The local militias were more than up to challenge, stone walling the ground force and shooting down two of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters (below) tasked to the mission. Dozens of Rangers were trapped in the city for more than 12 hours before being extracted; the Army's losses (in addition to the Black Hawks) were 18 dead and 73 wounded, and though the Somali casualties exceeded 800 killed and wounded, the Army suffered a psychological black eye in the mission. On October 3, 1997, "Mr. Hockey," Gordie Howe, skates in his record-sixth decade as a professional. Howe made his NHL debut with the Detroit Red Wings in 1946 and stayed with Detroit until a wrist injury forced his retirement in 1971. A year later, Howe came out of retirement to play with his two sons with the Houston franchise of the newly-formed World Hockey Association. He joined the Hartford Whalers in 1979, returning to the NHL when the WHA folded and the established league absorbed the Hartford franchise. He retired again in 1980, but in a publicity stunt, played one shift with the Detroit Vipers of the International Hockey League at age 69, playing a total of 40 seconds (rookie year photo).
