This day in history...

Page 200 of this thread!

On August 9, 1173, construction begins on the Campanile of the Pisa Cathedral in Italy. A campanile is a freestanding bell tower, as opposed to a tower that is part of a cathedral or church. It took 199 years in 3 phases to complete the 183 feet tall tower, but it was just 5 years into construction when the foundation began to sink and the tower tilted, due to soft subsoil. Work was halted for nearly a century to allow the foundation to settle. When construction resumed, builders intentionally constructed the upper floors of the tower with one side taller than the other to compensate for the tilt. Somewhere along the way, the Campanile earned its unofficial name, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It has survived several earthquakes and the ignorance of its designers and builders, both pre and post construction (someone's brilliant idea in the 19th century to dig a trench alongside the tower so tourists could admire the base architecture caused it to lean even more) and received a last minute reprieve from US artillery in WWII when the Germans - who may have been using it to observe American movements - retreated.


On August 9, 1942, the US Navy suffers defeat off Savo Island in the Solomon Sea. Two days earlier, the US had surprised the Japanese with landings on several Solomon Islands, including Guadalcanal. While an infantry response was assembled, Admiral Gunichi Mikawa dispatched a task force of 7 cruisers and a destroyer to attack the support fleet. In a night confrontation, Mikawa's forces sank the American cruisers Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes, and the Australian cruiser Canberra. Three of the Japanese ships were damaged. The loss of these ships and further losses during the Solomons campaign caused the waters off Savo Island to be nicknamed Ironbottom Sound by US Navy personnel. Naval historians consider the Battle of Savo Island to be second only to Pearl Harbor among the worst defeats in US Naval history (the USS Quincy, on fire and illuminated by searchlights on the Japanese ships)


On August 9, 1944, the United States Forestry Service and the Wartime Ads Council launch a new campaign for forest fire awareness. The campaign features a bear dousing a campfire with a bucket of water and the slogan, "Smokey says, care will prevent 9 out of 10 forest fires!" It is the debut of Smokey the Bear, now the longest-running public service campaign in American history. Fire control - always a concern of the forestry service - became an even bigger problem with the personnel shortage during the war. Forestry Service artist Henry Rossol conceived the bear wearing jeans and a campaign hat, and the name Smokey honors a famed NYC fireman (the mispelling of the adjective "smoky" is intentional). In 1947, a new poster mimicked the famed Uncle Sam WWI recruiting posters with the new phrase, "Only YOU can prevent forest fires!" In 1950, an injured bear cub rescued during a fire in New Mexico was dubbed the living version of Smokey; he was treated and given to the National Zoo in Washington.

 

On August 12, 1992, the leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico agree on the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement. It would be signed in October and went into effect on January 1, 1994. NAFTA was born as a plank in Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign platform. Nothing would happen until the end of his term however, when a 1988 trade agreement between the US and Canada convinced Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari to come to the table. At its signing, NAFTA created one of the largest trade blocs in the world by GDP. Most economic analysts agree it was successful in some respects, damaging in others. It remained in effect until replaced by the United States-Canada-Mexico Agreement in 2020.


On August 12, 1851, Isaac Singer is awarded a patent for his improvements to the Lewis & Blodgett sewing machine. The 40-year old Singer already held two industrial patents and was working at a machine shop in Boston when he was asked to look at the Lewis & Blodgett, which was manufactured at the shop. Singer's improvements led to advancements that made sewing machines practical for home sale for the first time (the first sewing machines were developed in the late 18th century, but were generally unreliable). They also led to a series of lawsuits over patent infringement, mostly brought by Elias Howe, who had introduced his own machine 6 years before Singer entered the picture. Several other manufacturers would agree to pool their patents with Singer and pay Howe a royalty, and by 1860 I.M. Singer & Co. was the largest mass producer of sewing machines in the world.


On August 12, 1994, a players' strike brings Major League Baseball to a halt. What followed was the longest (at the time) professional sports work stoppage in history. The remainder of the season was cancelled, and for the first time since the inception of the two leagues, MLB had no post season playoffs, with the World Series being cancelled for the first time since 1904. The start of the 1995 season was also delayed until April 2, causing the '95 season to be shortened as well. At its core, the strike was over owners' insistence that a salary cap be implemented, which they said was necessary to keep teams in small TV markets competitive. The Players' Association objected, saying the cap cleaned up ownership problems at the expense of the players. The strike would be broken when owners arranged to start the '95 season with replacement players, but fan bases around the league were disenchanted with both sides by then (below). The worst impact was to the Montreal Expos, who's fan support fell off so much that in 2004, the team relocated to Washington, D.C.

 

On August 13, 1942, the US Army Corps of Engineers is ordered to begin construction on facilities for the Development of Substitute Materials Project. The name was selected by several higher ups in the CoE, but Colonel Leslie Groves, deputy for the head of the Construction Division, felt it might draw unwanted attention. Colonel James C. Marshall had been tapped to lead up construction, and he already had a temporary HQ set up in Manhattan. Over time, Development of Substitute Materials became known as the Manhattan Project.


On August 13, 1889, William Gray of Hartford, CT is issued a patent for his "Coin-controlled apparatus for telephones." As telephones became more common, a real problem for phone-equipped businesses was people who would use the phone and then leave without paying for the call. Many companies instituted procedures for phone access to thwart such "dead-heads", but a phone at the Hartford Bank that used Gray's apparatus is considered the first coin-operated pay phone. He founded the Telephone Pay Station Co. two years later. Its believed the number of pay phones in the U.S. topped out at just over 2.5 million in the mid-1990's. Cell phones have nearly wiped them out of existence, but phones that accept payment via coins or electronic means are still in use world-wide (fun fact: Gray would earn two patents in his lifetime; the other was for a chest protector for baseball catchers).


On August 13, 1898, Spanish and American forces in the Philippines stage the Mock Battle of Manila. As the Spanish-American War wound down, the Philippines Revolutionary Force, with American aid, had gained control of most of the islands, though the Spanish still controlled the walled fortress of Intramuros within the capital city of Manila. The Spanish saw defeat was inevitable, but wanted to protect their reputation in international politics. Rather than surrender to a rag-tag force of indigenous non-whites, Governor-General Fermin Jaudines reached out to Admiral George Dewey and proposed the Americans stage a fake attack, after which the city would be surrendered to the Americans. After a few days of mock surrender negotiations, during which the mock battle was choreographed, the Americans launched their "attack." Real ordinance was being fired and inevitably, mistakes occurred, resulting in 68 deaths on both sides. But the Spanish soon raised the white flag as pre-arranged, leaving American forces in control of Manila, but surrounded by revolutionary forces. By the following February, the Philippine-American War was underway.


On August 13, 1935 at Chicago Coliseum, Transcontinental Roller Derby is launched. Combining two popular fads of the time, dance marathons and roller skating, film publicist Leo Seltzer had 25 teams of 1 man, 1 woman skate on a banked wooden track for 3,000 miles, roughly the distance from LA to NYC. It took about two weeks, and only 9 teams finished, but thousands attended to watch. Encouraged, Seltzer took the event on the road with a portable track and at one of these events, noted sportswriter Damon Runyon noticed the viewers got especially excited watching the competitors using physical force to gain advantage. He suggested to Seltzer that he tweak the rules to maximize the contact, and even stage fake contact to further heighten the action. Seltzer was resistant to change at first, but eventually gave the crowds what they wanted. The modern "sport" of roller derby was born.

 

On August 14, 1842, the Second (of three) Seminole War comes to an end. The war was provoked in 1835 when the U.S. government unilaterally voided the treaty that ended the first war (1823) and confined the Seminoles to a single reservation in the central Florida peninsula. This time, President Andrew Jackson wanted them relocated to reservations in Oklahoma. Some voluntarily complied, but other violently fought back, until General Thomas Jesup launched a scorched earth campaign (not unlike Sherman's March to the Sea 20 years later) and starved out the holdovers. A few hundred Seminoles managed to avoid relocation and settled in southwest Florida, and would later be driven into the Everglades region during the Third Seminole War of 1855-58.


On August 14, 1836, the last known public execution in the U.S. takes place. In Owensboro, KY, Rainey Bethea was hanged for the rape and murder of a 70-year old woman. An estimated 20,000 people gathered to watch, many who came because it had been reported that the sheriff - a woman - would act as executioner, an American first. Instead, Sheriff Florence Thompson appointed a retired Louisville police officer, who showed up drunk and failed to spring the trapdoor as ordered - a professional hangman who had been paid only to noose Bethea stepped in and finished the job. Some reports stated that immediately afterward, some in the crowd ravaged Bethea's body in hopes of grabbing a souvenir. The Kentucky General Assembly banned public execution two years later, the last state to do so.


On August 14, 1948, the first flight of the Idaho Beaver Drop takes place. Beavers had played a vital role in the development of Idaho's wetlands until being hunted into endangerment for their fur. The U.S. Dept of the Interior began strategically relocating beavers in 1936, but the process of capturing them in the wild and relocating them by truck and horseback was arduous. Then Idaho Fish and Game employee Elmo Heter hit on the idea of air dropping beavers into remote areas, using surplus WWII parachutes and specially built boxes with spring loaded doors that opened on contact with the ground. The idea was successfully tested and on August 14, 16 beavers in 8 crates were dropped into central Idaho's Chamberlain Basin. Over the next week, 76 beavers were dropped; all but one survived the process. Popular Mechanics magazine wrote about the operation, referring to the "parabeavers" and calling the program "ingenious, if bizarre." Proof I am not making this up:

 

On August 15, 1965, The Beatles open their second tour of the United States with a concert in NYC's Shea Stadium. Considered the birth of "stadium rock," The Beatles played for just 30 minutes (there were four preceding acts) in front of roughly 55,000 fans, a single event rock record that stood until Led Zeppelin drew 56,000 in Tampa in 1973.


On August 15, 1977, the Ohio State University's Big Ear telescope detects what will come to be known as the Wow! signal. tOSU astronomers were allowing Big Ear to be used for SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) work when it locked onto a signal believed to have originated in the constellation Sagittarius for 72 seconds. It wasn't until a few days later that astronomer Jerry Ehman examined the printouts generated that night and saw the signal, noting its strength and writing "Wow!" next to it. Further examination of the data showed the signal bore many of the characteristics SETI researchers expected to find in a signal from an ET intelligence (as laid out by a 1959 Cornell U. paper). No other telescope engaged in SETI at the time heard the signal, nor has it been heard again since.


On August 15, 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution and the last surviving general of that war, makes a return visit to the United States. Lafayette arrived in New York City (where the greeting was so massive, the New York Mirror wrote, "Gentlemen are ready to throw by their business to shake him by the hand, and ladies forget their lovers to dream of him. If a man asks 'have you seen him?' you know who he means.") and over the next 13 months visited all 24 states, receiving a hero's welcome at virtually every stop. He paid honor to George Washington at his tomb at Mt. Vernon and visited with James Madison and his old friend Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. In Boston, Lafayette was given the honor of laying the cornerstone for the Bunker Hill Monument (below). He also addressed Congress, and of course, visited Yorktown. At the tour's conclusion, President John Quincy Adams ordered Lafayette be returned to France aboard the naval vessel Susquehanna, which was renamed USS Brandywine to commemorate the battle in which he wounded.

 

On August 16, 1858, Queen Victoria sends President James Buchanan a message of congratulations via the transatlantic telegraph cable, the first use of the new means of communication. Her congratulations were hasty; after 4 years of installation, the signal over the new cable was extremely weak; it wasn't until the next day that the telegraph station on the UK side received confirmation of the message. In early September the cable failed completely, burned out by repeated attempts to boost the voltage. The failure severely damaged investor confidence in the project. A second attempt to lay a more reliable cable in 1865 failed when the cable was lost at sea. The third attempt, in 1866, was successful (the same effort retrieved the cable lost the year before, giving cable operators a backup) and the transatlantic cable began living up to the motto coined to promote its improvement over communications delivered by ship: "From two weeks to two minutes." (map shows the route of the 1858 cable)


On August 16, 1896, American George Carmack and a pair of indigenous prospectors discover gold on Bonanza Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River, setting off the Yukon Gold Rush. Word soon reached the American west coast and over the next year, an estimated 100,000 prospectors headed north in what came to be known as the Klondike Stampede. However, the Klondike was a very difficult area to reach at the time, and at most, 40,000 prospectors completed the journey and took gold out of the region. The Rush was over by 1898, but those who stuck it out were able to bring in more modern mining equipment over the next few years. Gold mining remains a driver of the Yukon Territory's economy to this day. (photo: a tent camp on Lake Bennett in the winter of 1898; the river was completely frozen at the time)


On August 16, 1960, Joseph Kittinger sets records for the highest balloon ascent, highest altitude parachute jump, longest free fall and fastest speed attained by a human without mechanical assistance. A USAF pilot tapped for Project Excelsior to study problems/effects of aircraft ejection at high altitudes, Kittinger made 3 high altitude jumps from balloons in 9 months from 1959-60, each time setting the high altitude jump record. On August 16, Kittinger uttered a quick prayer ("Lord, take care of me now") and stepped off the Excelsior III gondola at an altitude of 102,800 feet (right photo). He was in free fall for 4 minutes, 36 seconds and reached a speed of 614 mph before pulling the ripcord at 18,000 feet (in another human first, he saw the curvature of the earth with his own eyes before jumping). Kittinger was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his achievement by President Eisenhower. His ascent record was broken by a French team a year later, but the other records stood until broken in 2012 in Felix Baumgartner's highly-publicized Red Bull Stratos jump - at age 84, Kittinger served as capsule communications director on that project. He died in 2022 at age 94. Personal note: I interviewed Joe Kittinger twice in the early 2000's, amazingly cool dude. He told me in one interview that he made that 100,000 feet jump with his right hand swollen to twice its normal size due to a malfunction in his pressure suit.

 

On August 20, 1794, an American force defeats British/Canadian troops and their native American allies at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. It was the third year of the Northwest Indian War, a post-Revolutionary campaign by the British to maintain a presence in North America. Near what is now Maumee, Ohio, an outnumbered British and native force sprung a well-conceived ambush on the American troops, who rallied and dispursed the attackers when Major General "Mad Anthony" Wayne ordered a bayonet/sabre charge. Although only about 70 minutes long and resulting in fewer than 100 casualties combined, the battle left the northern Ohio Territory open to American settlement. Side note: the battle also was a prelude to a later major encounter; Wayne's aide-de-camp, Lt. William Henry Harrison, and a minor Shawnee warrior named Tecumseh would clash at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.


On August 20, 1944, the "terror flyers" arrive at Buchenwald Labor Camp. As the Allies gained control of the European skies, Hitler ordered the immediate execution of captured airmen caught in acts of espionage, which could mean nothing more than wearing civilian clothing or not having dog tags. Concerned with the illegal act of killing prisoners, the German Foreign Office sent out the order that such men were to be denied POW status. This excused them to transfer 168 captured flyers (about half American, the others from various nations of the British Empire) from a civilian prison to the forced labor camp at Buchenwald. Most would later say they never expected to leave alive, and the group organized itself in the camp to maintain their military order, dubbing themselved the "KLB Club" (for Konzentrationslager Buchenwald). Within 2 months, Luftwaffe officers in the camp recognized their situation and had them transferred to StalagLuft1, a POW camp for airmen. Two of the KLB Club died of illness in Buchenwald. The rest survived the war, though only one, British pilot Stanley Booker, remains to this day. (photo depicts a club pin designed by the members at one of the Buchenwald meetings)


On August 20, 1938, Lou Gehrig hits his major league record 23rd grand slam. The record would stand until 2013, when it was broken by another New York Yankee, Alex Rodriguez. Gehrig's playing days came to an end the following April when he famously took himself out of the Yankee lineup, ending the "Iron Horse's" prolific streak of 2,130 consecutive games played. He died of ALS two years later; Gehrig would be the first player in MLB history to have his jersey number (#4) retired by his team, and in 1999 was the leading vote getter in a fan-based selection of the MLB All-Century Team.

 

On August 21, 1957, the Soviet Union launches a prototype of the R-7 Semyorka (the name roughly translates to "Old number 7") carrying a dummy warhead from Kazakhstan at a target in Kamchatka, 3,700 miles away. The missile completed the flight, but the warhead disintigrated in the upper atmosphere over the target. That didn't stop the Soviets from announcing to the world they had developed the first successful intercontinental ballistic missile. Though the R-7 (dubbed SS-6 by NATO) never flew in anger, it would launch Sputnik 1 into orbit the following October. Variations of the R-7 are still in use today, having been the lift vehicle for most of the USSR/Russia's most important space flights, and is generally considered one of the world's most reliable space launchers.


On August 21, 1945, Harry Daghlian, a physicist on the Manhattan Project, accidentally irradiates himself. Daghlian was attempting to build (by hand) a neutron reflector over a plutonium core at Los Alamos, NM, using tungsten carbide bricks, when he dropped a brick on the core, causing it to go supercritical. He died of radiation poisoning 25 days later. Project leaders immediately initiated new safety protocols for its team members, but that didn't prevent the death of physicist Louis Slotin two years later while working on the same core, which came to be known as the "demon core." Following Slotin's death, all criticality experiments at Los Alamos were halted until remote control handling devices were developed. (photo show Daghlian in the background, Slotin wearing sunglasses while working on the Trinity test at Los Alamos a month before Daghlian's death. Right photo shows the "demon core" with tungsten carbide bricks in the correct configuration had Daghlian's mistake not occurred)


On August 21, 2000, Tigers Woods adds the PGA Championship to his US Open and The (British) Open championships for the 2000 season. Woods became the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win 3 major titles in the same calendar year. The PGA was the final major of the year, and Woods would follow up in 2001 by winning the year's first major, The Masters. The Masters win left Woods holding all four major titles at the same time, a feat the sports world soon dubbed the "Tiger Slam." Its the closest any player has come to duplicating Bobby Jones' natural Grand Slam (all four majors in the same season) in 1930. 2000 was arguably Woods' greatest season, winning 9 tournaments (6 in a row at one point) and breaking the PGA tour record for lowest per round scoring average in a single year. (Woods in 1997)