Post by farmgal on Aug 11, 2012 15:48:37 GMT -5
August 12 is the 224th day of this leap year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 142 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days until Election Day, Tuesday November 6, 2012: 87
Countdown until Obama leaves Office www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
It is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseid
30 BC Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.
3 B.C. A planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Venus was visible that may have been the Star of Bethlehem mentioned in the New Testament. In this pre-dawn, “morning star” conjunction, the two planets appeared very close to each other in the sky (a mere 0.07° apart as viewed from Earth). It occurred when the planets were in the last degrees of the zodiacal sign of Cancer which was the concluding sign for interpreting that astrological year. The same two planets met again just ten months later (17 Jun 2 B.C.), even more closely, almost touching (0.01°), in an “evening star” conjunction in the first degrees of Leo, the beginning sign of the new astrological year. These two unions of Jupiter and Venus might have been interpreted as the close of one age in history amd the beginning of another age in 2 B.C.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_Bethlehem#Astronomical_object
1099 First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ascalon
Monument at the Didgori field, Georgia
1121 Battle of Didgori: the Georgian army under King David the Builder wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Didgori
1164 Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Harim
1323 Signature of the Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod (Russia), that regulates the border between the two countries for the first time.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_N%C3%B6teborg
1480 Battle of Otranto: Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians on the Hill of the Minerva for refusing to convert to Islam.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Otranto
1499 First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zonchio
1624 The president of Louis XIII of France's royal council is arrested, leaving Cardinal Richelieu in the role of the King's principal minister.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu#Chief_minister
1676 Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alderman
1687 Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottomans.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moh%C3%A1cs
1778 A Rhode Island hurricane prevented an impending British-French sea battle, and caused extensive damage over southeast New England.
1806 Santiago de Liniers re-takes the city of Buenos Aires after the first British invasion.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Liniers
1812 Archibald Alexander Assumed Princeton Post
"Who is he that speaks? It is the voice of 'Immanuel, God with us.' What man or angel could invite a guilty world to come to him. Neither Moses nor Elijah, nor Paul, nor John, presumed to call men to look to them for rest. Only He in whom 'dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,' could give rest to every troubled soul."
The preacher was Alexander Archibald, a man who had memorized the catechism at seven, and begun his Latin studies even earlier. As a youth he was an expert swimmer and horseman. At seventeen he made a public profession of faith in Christ. He preached his first sermon shortly afterward, without any preparation, because he was asked to fill in at the last moment. He spoke so clearly and confidently that the Presbyterian Church licensed him to preach when he was just nineteen. The move was justified: Alexander soon led a revival in North Carolina.
After 1812, the lecture halls of Princeton were also stirred by his passion for Christ. For Archibald had urged the creation of a seminary; and on this day, August 12, 1812, the denomination chose him to be the first Professor at the Theological Seminary of Princeton. He not only organized all the courses but taught them all himself! He stamped the seminary with deep scholarship and Christian fervor.
Princeton began as The College of New Jersey in 1746 as a result of the Great Awakening. Like many of the early colleges and universities of the United States, it was established mostly to teach ministers. Several of its key supporters were graduates of the "Log College" run by fiery revivalist Gilbert Tennent.
For centuries, a single individual could master in a lifetime all that was taught at university. But knowledge increased so much after the scientific revolution that by the nineteenth century no one man could learn all there was to know. Educational leaders found it necessary to create separate medical schools, law schools and seminaries. Seminaries were also needed to provide pastors for the growing population of the western United States. Princeton Theological Seminary was opened in response to these developments.
Its purpose was "to unite in those who shall sustain the ministerial office, religion and literature; that piety of the heart, which is the fruit only of the renewing and sanctifying grace of God, with solid learning; believing that religion without learning, or learning without religion, in the ministers of the gospel, must ultimately prove injurious to the church."
Archibald combined the learning and faith that the school hoped to impart to its students. For example, because zealots claimed that the Bible forbids drinking, he deliberately sipped a little wine in company just to show that the Bible says nothing of the kind.
His appeals were not just intellectual but to the heart, as these words from his sermon show: "Do not for a moment suppose that you must make yourself better, or prepare your heart for a worthy reception of Christ, but come at once--come as you are. He saves none because their sins are comparatively few and unnoticed by their fellow-men; he rejects none because their sins are many and great....The promise is that he will give you rest. And this includes pardon and acceptance with God. It includes a deliverance from the condemnation and the tyranny of sin, from fear and remorse, from all spiritual enemies and all vain self-righteous hopes. It is a cordial for an accusing conscience, it is consolation for the oppressed, it is peace for the troubled spirit, it is a balm for every evil that can afflict us in our passage through life, and it is the earnest and pledge of the glorious, pure, eternal rest of heaven."
www.christianity.com/ChurchHistory/11630367/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Alexander
1851 Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine with a rocking treadle. Although a sewing machine had already been patented, Singer's sewing machine was revolutionary, having a double treadle. With patent in hand, Isaac set up shop in Boston, Massachusetts and began to manufacture his invention. Even after huge settlements paid to Elias Howe, another sewing machine patent holder, Singer, through business innovations like installment buying, after-sale servicing and trade-in allowances, had the marketplace all sewn up.
1865 Dr. Joseph Lister became the first surgeon perform an antiseptic operation by liberal use of carbolic acid (phenol) as a disinfectant. He had studied Louis Pasteur's germ theory of disease, that infections are caused by bacteria. Lister knew carbolic acid had been effective in municipal use for treating sewage, and decided to try using it to kill germs that would otherwise infect wounds. He poured it on bandages, ligatures, instruments and directly on the wound and hands. His first patient to benefit from this procedure was James Greenlees, age 12, whose broken leg was treated after being run over by a cart. The dressing was soaked with carbolic acid and linseed oil. The wound healed without infection. Lister continued his protocol of hygiene, and reduced the surgical death rate from 45% to 15%.
1867 President Andrew Johnson defies Congress suspending Edwin Stanton. In March 1867 Congress passed the first of the Reconstruction Acts that provided for Negro suffrage. Johnson attempted to veto the legislation but when this failed, he managed to delay the program and undermined its ineffectiveness.
Secretary of War Stanton made it clear he disagreed with Andrew Johnson and in 1867 the president attempted to force him from office and replace him with Ulysses S. Grant. Stanton refused to go and was supported by the Senate. Grant now stood down and was replaced by Lorenzo Thomas. This was a violation of the Tenure of Office Act and some members of the Republican Party began talking about impeaching Johnson.
1877 Thomas Alva Edison, though this date is often given as the date of a finished model of his first phonograph, may have actually only made a sketch. Some correspondence in Sep 1877 suggests Edison was at work on his ideas for what became his cylinder phonograph, though construction of a working model may not have begun until 4 Dec, according to the diary of one of Edison's aides. Indeed, Edison did not file for the patent until 24 Dec 1877. The idea came to him while working on a telegraph transmitter, when he noticed that when the tape of the machine was played at high speed, it gave off a noise resembling spoken words. After experimenting with a needle attached to the diaphragm of a telephone receiver to prick paper tape to record a message, his idea evolved to using a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder
1879 First National Archery Association tournament (Chicago) In 1878, Maurice Thompson wrote a book, "The Witchery of Archery," which inspired the formation of more than twenty archery clubs in less than a year. They met at Crawfordsville in 1879 to establish the National Archery Association, which held the first national tournament that year at White Stocking Park in Chicago. Will Thompson won the first national men's championship and went to win four more titles, the last in 1908.
1883 The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam. It was not realised at that time that she was the very last of her kind. Because of the confusion caused by the indiscriminate use of the term "quagga" for any zebra, the true quagga had been hunted to extinction without this being realised until much later. The Quagga, formerly inhabited the Karoo and southern Free State of South Africa. Like other grazing mammals, quaggas had been ruthlessly hunted. The settlers saw them as competitors for the grazing of their livestock, mainly sheep and goats. Now, by breeding with selected southern plains zebras an attempt is being made, started by Reinhold Rau, to retrieve at least the genes responsible for the Quaggas colouration.The quagga (Equus quagga quagga) is an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra, which was once found in great numbers in the Highveld of the Cape Province and the southern part of the Orange Free State in South Africa. It was distinguished from other zebras by having the usual vivid marks on the front part of the body only. In the mid-section, the stripes faded and the dark, inter-stripe spaces became wider, and the rear parts were a plain brown. The name comes from a Khoikhoi word for zebra and is onomatopoeic, being said to resemble the quagga's call. The only quagga to have been photographed alive was a mare at the Zoological Society of London's Zoo in Regent's Park in 1870.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga
Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador in the U.S., signing the memorandum of ratification on behalf of Spain.
1898 An Armistice ends the Spanish-American War.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-American_War#Making_peace
1898 The Hawaiian flag is lowered from Iolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawai`i to the United States.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawai%60i#Annexation.E2.80.94the_Territory_of_Hawaii_.281898.E2.80.931959.29
1914 World War I: the United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/summary_01.shtml
1918 Regular air-mail service began between New York City and Washington, DC. Careful preliminary study and consideration had been given this new undertaking and on May 15, 1918, the first air mail route in the United States was established between New York, N. Y., and Washington, D. C., with a stop at Philadelphia, Pa., for the exchange of mails or plane. The distance of the route was approximately 218 miles and the frequency of service was one round trip daily, except Sunday. This service was inaugurated with the cooperation of the War Department, which furnished the planes and pilots and conducted the flying and maintenance operations, the Post Office Department handling the mail and matters relating thereto.
The cooperation of the War Department, which was of great value, was maintained until August 12, 1918, when the Post Office Department took over the entire operation of the route, furnishing its own equipment and personnel.
1928 9th Olympic Games close in Amsterdam
1930 Clarence Birdseye patented a method for packaging frozen foods. From 1912 to 1916, when a fellow by the name of Colonel Clarence Birdseye was fur-trapping in Labrador, he witnessed the Inuit preserving their food by fast freezing it. This process prevented ice crystals from forming on the food and causing spoilage by puncturing the cells. By 1929, Birdseye had produced packages of frozen vegetables, meat and other items that were sold at grocery stores.
1933 The temperature at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley, CA, hit 127 degrees to establish a U.S. record for the month of August.
1934 Babe Ruth's final game at Fenway Park. Widely considered to be the best player of all time, Ruth was the prototype of the modern superstar. He was the first player to hit 30, 40, 50, and 60 home runs in a season, and his slugging style forever changed the way baseball was played.
Making a farewell appearance in Boston, Babe Ruth draws a record 46,766 fans, with an estimated 20,000 turned away at Fenway Park where he began his career as a pitcher 20 years ago. Ruth singles and doubles in the first game, but the Yankees lose to Wes Ferrell 6-4. Walks hold him to one official at bat in the second game, which the Yankees win, and he leaves the field to standing cheers in the 8th inning.
1936 Diver Marjorie Gestring becomes youngest Olympic gold medalist. At only 13 years and 9 months old, Gestring became the youngest individual gold medalist in Olympic history when she won the springboard diving championship in 1936. She may well have been deprived of another medal or two by World War II, which forced the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics.
Gestring won the national outdoor 3-meter springboard championship in 1937, 1938, and 1940; the indoor 3-meter from 1936 through 1938; and the outdoor platform in 1939 and 1940. She made a comeback to compete in the 1948 Olympic trials, but finished fourth and failed to qualify for the team.
1936 The temperature at Seymour, TX, hit 120 degrees to establish a state record.
1937 Comedian Red Skelton got his first taste of network radio. Skelton appeared on the "Rudy Vallee Show" on NBC. Soon after Red had his own radio show which ran from 1941-1953. The show provided an opportunity to present his unique brand of comedy to a mass audience. During this time, he further developed his trademark characters that included: Freddie the Freeloader, Clem Kadiddlehopper, Willy Lump Lump, Cauliflower McPugg, The Mean Widdle Kid, San Fernando Red, and, of course, the cross-eyed seagulls, Gertrude and Heathcliffe.
1944 Waffen SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
1944 Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant%27Anna_di_Stazzema_massacre
1944 Alençon is liberated by General Leclerc, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alen%C3%A7on#History
Section of pipeline showing lead core and successive protective layers
1944 The first fuel-carrying PLUTO (Pipe-Line Under The Ocean) under the English Channel became operational supplying fuel from the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg for vehicles of the Allied forces in France. This over 70 mile pipe was laid in just 10 hours, and is one of the greatest feats of military engineering. The scheme was developed by A.C. Hartley, chief engineer with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, from an idea by Admiral Louis Mountbatten to relieve dependence on vulnerable oil tankers. Prototypes of the pipeline were tested at several locations starting in May 1942. Britain and the U.S. then produced sufficient pipe to eventually lay 18 pipelines between England and France pumping 781 million litres of fuel by VE day.*
1947 The Ayor Came out of the Jungle. Today, New Tribes Mission is one of the largest in the world. In November, 1942, they sent out their first team, a group of ten men and women with six children. They sailed for Bolivia. Five of the men would never return.
When they arrived in Bolivia, the team decided to open work with the Ayoré tribe, known to Bolivians as barbarians. Because of encroachment on their territory, the Ayoré were infamous for savage attacks on intruders.
As the missionary team worked their way toward their destination, they shared the Gospel. The team even converted 100 Bolivians to Christ before they reached their place of work! In June, 1943, the men left Roboré, the last outpost of civilization. Soon they were chopping their way through South America's "green hell"--the jungle. They wanted to make contact with the Ayoré in the jungle, away from areas where the "barbarians" had been killed or captured in the past. Although the missionaries had guns, they carried them only for hunting and protection from jaguars. They had made up their minds to send the weapons home as soon as they found themselves near the Ayoré, not wishing to risk killing any Ayoré.
Attacked by thorns, insects and malaria, they pressed on, willing to lay down their lives if only the Ayoré might hear about the glorious Christ. When they found a creek that they believed the Ayoré used, they sent their guns home. Dave Bacon, Cecil and Bob Dye, George Hosback and Eldon Hunter pressed forward, hoping to tell the Indians about the Jesus who left majesty to die for them. "If you don't hear anything inside a month, you can come search for us," said Cecil to the two men who were taking the guns back.
A month came and went without a word. Searchers set out, but did not find the missing men. Later in an Ayoré camp, they found personal items belonging to the men. It would be eight years before the facts were known.
The remaining missionaries continued to try to contact the Ayoré, leaving gifts for them. Eventually they made friends. On this day, August 12, 1947, a group of Ayoré laid down their weapons and came out of the jungle.
In 1950, an Ayoré man who had been present told what happened to the five missionaries who never came back. The missionaries had walked into an Ayoré camp and left gifts in front of the surprised natives. Because one warrior wanted a bigger gift, the five Gospel-bearers were killed.
The chief was away at the time. Upon his return, he rebuked his men for the killing. Clearly the white men were not enemies. He buried them in the camp.
Were their deaths a waste? Other New Tribes missionaries looked at them as five seeds. As Cecil Dye had written before his death, "...perhaps more Christians at home would become more aware of their responsibility to lost men and less concerned over the material things of this life if the expedition failed and we lost our lives."
www.christianity.com/ChurchHistory/11630787/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tribes_Mission#Early_history
1950 Bloody Gulch massacre : American POWs were massacred by North Korean Army.
1952 The Night of the Murdered Poets: 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow. All defendants were falsely accused of espionage and treason as well as many other crimes. After their arrests, they were tortured, beaten, and isolated for three years before being formally charged. There were five Yiddish writers among these defendants, all of whom were a part of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Murdered_Poets
1952 American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal: 'I must come to be aware of Satan. He may never get me into hell, but he may cause God shame in defeating me. Preserve me from the lion, Lord. Let him not swallow me up.'
1953 The Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb, in Kazakhstan. Eight days later, the USSR published (20 Aug 1953) news of the H-bomb test. The explosion, with a yield of 400 kilotons (about 30 times the power of the bomb dropped on Japan, 6 Aug 1945), came less than 10 months after the first U.S. bomb test, "Mike," (1 Nov 1952) announced by President Harry Truman on 7 Jan 1953. Notably, the Soviet bomb was more portable than the U.S. device—small enough to fit in a plane, and be easily weaponizeable, though its size limited the amount of thermonuclear fuel and explosive force. It had their own “layer cake” design of lithium-6 deuteride and tritium fuel layered with uranium. The American test was designed for greater explosive power
1953 The islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia in Greece are severely damaged by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale.
1955 President Eisenhower raises minimum wage from $0.75 to $1 an hour
1955 During the second week of August hurricanes Connie and Diane produced as much as 19 inches of rain in the northeastern U.S. forcing rivers from Virginia to Massachusetts into a high flood. Westfield MA was deluged with 18.15 inches of rain in 24 hours, and at Woonsocket RI the Blackstone River swelled from seventy feet in width to a mile and a half. Connecticut and the Delaware Valley were hardest hit. Total damage in New England was 800 million dollars, and flooding claimed 187 lives.
1960 Echo 1A, NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral, packed in a Thor-Delta rocket. At the altitude for low Earth orbit, above almost all of the Earth's atmosphere, the satellite was deployed and inflated with gas at low pressure to form a 100-ft (30.5-m) diameter spherical balloon made of metallized Mylar, 0.5 mils (12.7-μm) thick. Thus it is known as a balloon satellite, as originally conceived by William J. O'Sullivan (26 Jan 1956). Its orbit was at about 1,000 miles (1600-km). It was merely passive, to reflect microwave signals between points on Earth, similar to the way the Moon reflects light while the Sun is below the horizon. A commemorative stamp was issued 15 Dec 1960. Echo 1 remained in orbit until 24 May 1968. Telstar 1 followed 10 Jul 1962.
1960 Ralph Boston of the US, sets then long jump record at 26' 11".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Boston
1960 USAF Major Robert Michael White takes X-15 to 136,490 feet. While Walker pushed the top speed of the X-15, Major Bob White was assigned to fly the high altitude flights. His first altitude record attempt was aborted before launch on August 11, 1960. The next day Major Fulton and Major Allavie launched Major White from the NB-52A over Silver Lake. He flew the maximum lift over drag profile to an altitude of 60,000 feet. He leveled off and accelerated to mach 1.9. He then pulled up at 1.5 g's until he had pulled the stick all the way to its limit of travel. The engine burned out at an altitude of 120,000 feet and the X-15 coasted on up to 136,500 feet. This was the first flight to exceed Ivan Kinchloe's record, 125,907 feet attained in the X-2 on September 7, 1956. The top speed attained by the X-15-1 on the flight was mach 2.52 (1,772 miles per hour).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Michael_White
1964 10th time Mantle switch-hits HR in a game, one goes 502 feet. Mickey Mantle homers from each side of the plate in the same game for the 10th and final time, a ML record, and New York beats Chicago 7-3 at Yankee Stadium. Mel Stottlemyre, in his major league debut, is the winner, scattering seven hits.
1973 Chuck Colson's 1st Geniune Prayer. I have accepted Jesus Christ. I have committed my whole life to Him and it has been the most marvelous experience of my life." The words by Tom Philips staggered Chuck Colson. Colson didn't understand. Everyone knew Jesus Christ was dead two thousand years ago. Tom had more to say. "I had gotten to the point where I didn't think my life was worth anything. Now everything is changed--attitudes, values the whole bit." He would like to tell Colson the whole story, he said. To Colson it didn't make sense. Tom was the successful president of Raytheon, a huge electronics firm in Massachusetts. What did he need religion for?
Chuck Colson was by then out of the White House, working for a law firm. Accused in the press of being one of the central figures of the Watergate mess, he would later prove to have had less to do with it than the rest of the principal actors. At the time stories were still leaking out. Falsehoods were printed about him in the press. Hours of testimony loomed before him. Facing all this, he could not forget Tom's peace and his own inner ache.
On this day, Sunday August 12, 1973, Chuck Colson sat again in Tom Philip's house. Sipping tea together, Tom hit at Colson kindly but honestly. The whole White House staff had put their trust in themselves. They had tried to destroy their political enemies because they had no faith in their cause or in God. Colson felt the words were true. He respected Tom too much to doubt his sincere concern.
When Tom began to read aloud to him from C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity the words cut into Colson's heart. He saw himself as a man of pride who had ruined his own life by his hubris. "How about it?" Tom asked Chuck. Chuck said he wasn't ready yet. He had some hurdles to get over. He didn't want a foxhole religion. Tom nodded and gave him the book. "Read it," he suggested. "And read the gospel of John." He read some psalms to Colson. The words seemed to come alive. And then Tom asked Chuck if he would like him to pray with him.
Tom Phillip's prayer was so rich, so intimate that Chuck Colson felt the power and Spirit of Christ sweep over him. He had to fight back tears. God seemed to be sitting right beside him.
In his car, Colson found he couldn't drive. Tears were pouring from his eyes. He started back to Tom's house, but the lights went out. Sobbing uncontrollably, he turned on the car and drove a couple hundred feet. There he offered himself to God, admitting it wasn't much of an offer. "Take me, take me," he pleaded. For the first time in his life he felt he wasn't alone. It was the beginning of a transformation which would lead him to found Prison Fellowship and make him a respected Christian author.
www.christianity.com/ChurchHistory/11630833/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Colson
1974 Nolan Ryan strikes-out 19 Red Sox and walks only two as the Angels top the Red Sox 4-2. Baseball's all-time strikeout leader and author of a major-league record seven no-hitters, Ryan was in many ways the most remarkable pitcher ever to play the game.
1976 Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_al-Zaatar_massacre
1977 High Energy Astronomy Observatory 1 launched into Earth orbit. The first of NASA's three High Energy Astronomy Observatories, HEAO 1 was launched aboard an Atlas Centaur rocket on 12 August 1977 and operated until 9 January 1979. During that time, it scanned the X-ray sky almost three times over 0.2 keV - 10 MeV, provided nearly constant monitoring of X-ray sources near the ecliptic poles, as well as more detailed studies of a number of objects through pointed observations.
Thm.jpg)
1977 The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise, a Shuttle Approach and Landing Test, at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. It was launched mounted atop a Boeing 747 carrier, and separated from it in flight. Then it freely glided, on its own, in flight within the Earth's atmosphere. It touched down, landing like an airplane, on a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert. Designated Orbiter Vehicle OV-101, it was a prototype built only for testing; it was never equipped for space flight. It was named Enterprise after the Star Trek spacecraft. After being rolled out of Rockwell's assembly facility (17 Sep 1976), it was transported 36 miles overland to Dryden (31 Jan 1977). Its first captive flight test was on 18 Feb 1977.
1978 The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China is signed.
1980 The Montevideo Treaty, establishing the Latin American Integration Association, is signed.
1981 IBM introduced the PC personal computer for $1,600 base price. It shortly eliminated most other machines suitable for home or small business such as those with the S-100 bus, running on CP/M or their own operating system. The PC was developed in less than a year at IBM's Boca Raton Florida facility by using existing off-the-shelf components. The IBM-PC established the dominance of the Microsoft operating system. The IBM PC hardware design also became the industry standard for PC compatibles, with the ISA bus. Its Intel 8080 processor speed was 4.77 MHz, and it used from 16K up to 640K of memory. Data storage choices included 5.25" floppy drives, cassette tape, and later hard disks
1981 Jon Erikson (US) becomes first to triple cross English Channel (38:27)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Erikson
1982 Mexico announces it is unable to pay its enormous external debt, marking the beginning of a debt crisis that spreads to all of Latin America and the Third World.
1985 Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
1986 Don Baylor gets hits by a pitch for a record 25th time in a season. Boston's Don Baylor sets an American League record when he is hit by a pitch for the 25th time, breaking the season record he held with Bill Freehan (1968) and Kid Elberfeld (1911). The Royals Bud Black does the plunking in a 5-1 win. Baylor will end the season being hit 35 times: the major-league record is 50 by Ron Hunt.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Baylor
1987 Early afternoon thunderstorms in Arizona produced 3.90 inches of rain in ninety minutes at Walnut National Monument (located east of Flagstaff), along with three inches of pea size hail, which had to be plowed off the roads.
1988 In Hollywood, the controversial religious movie "The Last Temptation of Christ" was released, sparking protests from evangelical church groups across the nation.
1988 Fifteen cities in the northeastern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. Youngstown OH reported twenty-six days of 90 degree weather for the year, a total equal to that for the entire decade of the 1970s.
1989 Thunderstorms were scattered across nearly every state in the Union by late in the day. Thunderstorms produced wind gusts to 75 mph at Fergus Falls MN, and golf ball size hail and wind gusts to 60 mph at Black Creek WI. In the Chicago area, seven persons at a forest preserve in North Riverside were injured by lightning.
1990 The first three fossil bones were discovered which were part of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton subsequently unearthed. Susan Hendrickson found them while hunting fossils at a cliff near Faith, in the Black Hills of S. Dakota. When fully excavated and cleaned, the skeleton, thereafter nicknamed Sue, was a remarkable specimen, over 90% complete, with very well-preserved bones. Furthermore, it was the largest T. rex ever found—42-ft long, with a one-ton 5-ft long skull. After lengthy legal proceedings to establish ownership, the verdict was that it came from federal land and the U.S. claimed the bones. Eventually, on 4 Oct 1997, the bones were sold at auction to the Field Museum, Chicago, for 8.36 million (paid in part by corporate donations) and assembled for display from 17 May 2000
1992 Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
1994 Major League Baseball players go on strike. This will force the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
1681 Vitus Jonassen Bering (d 19 Dec 1741 age 60) Danish-Russian navigator who helped establish that Asia and America are two separate continents. He joined the Dutch navy as a young man, and later the Russian navy. He was commissioned by Tsar Peter the Great to travel the coast of Asia to see if it was connected to North America. He sailed through the Bering Strait in 1728. He discovered Alaska on his second voyage (1741), with several scientists on board, explored its coast, and discovered the Aleutian Islands. He died stranded during the winter following a shipwreck. The Bering Sea and Bering Island (where he died) are also named for him
1781 Robert Mills (d 3 Mar 1855 age 73) American architect and engineer who designed the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. Mills also designed buildings in several Eastern states. In 1836, he won the competition for the design of the Washington Monument. Construction began in 1848 and proceeded slowly because of a lack of funds. The monument was only 152-ft high when Mills died in 1855; only in 1878 did Congress appropriate money to complete the structure, which was finished at 555-ft in 1884. He also designed the Department of Treasury building and several other federal buildings. His diverse interests included mapping and making a directory of lighthouses. He adopted fire-proofing measures in the design of buildings
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mills_(architect)
1812 Ephraim Ball (died 1 Jan 1872 at age 59) American inventor and manufacturer whose "Ball's Ohio Mower" (patented 1 Dec1857) was the first widely successful of the two-wheeled flexible or hinged bar mowers, which greatly influenced the change from single driving-wheel machines to those with double drivers. His first invention was a turn-top stove. In 1840 he established a foundry for making ploughs. The “Ball's Blue Plough” he invented sold well. In 1851, he joined with others to form a larger company with factories at Canton, Ohio. His “Ohio Mower” (1854), “World Mower and Reaper,” and “Buckeye Machine” (1858) sold extensively. Thereafter his “New American Harvester”" produced up to 10,000 of these machines annually (1865). Nevertheless, he died impoverished.
1838 Joseph Barnby, English organist and choirmaster. He composed nearly 250 hymn tunes during his life. Of these the most enduring include LAUDES DOMINI ("When Morning Gilds the Skies"), LONGWOOD ("Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart"), MERRIAL ("Now the Day is Over") and ST. ANDREW ("We Give Thee But Thine Own").
www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/a/r/n/barnby_j.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Barnby
1856 Diamond Jim Brady, American financier (d. 1917)
1859 Katherine Lee Bates, (d 1929) American English teacher and poet. She published over 20 books, but is best remembered today for writing the patriotic hymn, "America, the Beautiful" (a.k.a. "O Beautiful for Spacious Skies").
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Lee_Bates
www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/a/t/bates_kl.htm
1867 Edith Hamilton, German-born American classicist (d. 1963)
1876 Mary Roberts Rinehart, American mystery writer (d. 1958)
1880 Christy Mathewson, American baseball player (d. 1925)
1881 Cecil B. DeMille, (d 1959) American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies. Among his best-known films are Cleopatra; Samson and Delilah; The Greatest Show on Earth, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture; and The Ten Commandments, which was his last and most successful film.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_B._DeMille
1882 Vincent Hugo Bendix (d 27 Mar 1945 age 62) American inventor who developed systems for automobiles and aircraft and companies to manufacture them. His first, the short-lived Bendix Company of Chicago (1907-9) made a car called the Bendix Buggy. In 1910, he invented the Bendix drive which made the electric self-starter possible. It used a gear to engage with the engine at low rotational speed then fly back, disengaging automatically at higher speed. The first four-wheel brake system for automobiles was his creation. He entered aviation systems production in 1929 with the Bendix Aviation Corporation (later be renamed Bendix Corporation), and started Bendix Helicopters, Inc. in 1942. During WW II, Bendix was the major source of U.S. aviation electronics
1883 Pauline Frederick, American actress (d. 1938)
1883 Martha Hedman, Swedish-American actress (d. 1974)
1883 Marion Lorne, American actress (d. 1968)
1889 Zerna Sharp, (d 1981) American writer and educator known for creating the Dick and Jane beginning readers, and many other readers for children. Sharp noted the reduced reading ability of children during her travels and urged a new reading format for primers. She suggested that primers introduce a word at a time to new readers, and the Dick and Jane primers adhered to this format. The names "Dick" and "Jane" were chosen because they were easy to sound. The primers were sold from 1927 to 1973.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerna_Sharp
1890 Al Goodman Nikopol Russia, conductor, songwriter, stage composer, musical director, arranger, and pianist. (NBC Comedy Hour)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Goodman
1891 C. E. M. Joad, English philosopher and broadcaster (d. 1953)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._E._M._Joad#Rise_and_fall
1892 Alfred Lunt, American actor (d. 1977)
1897 Otto Struve (d 6 Apr 1963 age 65) Russian-American astronomer who was a fourth generation astronomer, the great-grandson of Friedrich Struve. He made detailed spectroscopic investigations of stars, especially close binaries and peculiar stars, the interstellar medium (where he discovered H II regions), and gaseous nebulae. He contributed to the understanding of the broadening of spectral lines due to stellar rotation, electric fields, and turbulence and worked to separate these effects from each other and from chemical abundances. He was a pioneer in the study of mass transfer in closely interacting binary stars. Struve emigrated to the USA (1921) and joined the Yerkes Observatory, Wisconsin, becoming its director in 1932.
1906 Tedd Pierce, American animator (d. 1972)
1907 Joe Besser, American actor and comedian (d. 1988)
1910 Jane Wyatt, American actress (d. 2006)
1912 Samuel Fuller, American film director (d. 1997)
1913 Richard Bare, American director
1915 Michael Kidd, American choreographer (d. 2007)
1925 Dale Bumpers, American politician
1925 Norris McWhirter, Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records (d. 2004)
1925 Ross McWhirter, Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records (d. 1975)
1925 George Wetherill, American physicist (d. 2006)
1926 John Derek, American actor (d. 1998)
1926 Joe Jones, American R&B singer (d. 2005)
1926 Wallace Markfield, American writer (d. 2002)
1927 Porter Wagoner, American singer (d. 2007)
1928 Bob Buhl, American baseball player (d. 2001)
1928 Dan Curtis, American film and television producer and director (d.2006)
1929 Buck Owens, American singer (d. 2006)
1930 George Soros Hungarian-born American financier and political activist
1931 William Goldman, American screenwriter
1932 Dallin H. Oaks, American The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apostle and former Utah Supreme Court Justice
1932 Charlie O'Donnell, American game show announcer (d. 2010)
1933 Parnelli Jones, American race car driver and team owner
1932 Porter Wagoner country singer, discovered Dolly Parton (Y'All Come)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_Wagoner
1935 John Cazale, American actor (d. 1978)
1936 John Poindexter retired United States naval officer and Department of Defense official. He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor for the Reagan administration. He was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies as a result of his actions in the Iran-Contra affair, but his convictions were reversed on appeal in 1991. More recently, he served a brief stint as the director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office for the George W. Bush administration. He was the father of NASA astronaut Alan Poindexter.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Poindexter
1937 Walter Dean Myers, American novelist and poet
1939 Skip Caray, American TV and radio baseball announcer (Atlanta Braves) (d. 2008)
1939 George Hamilton, American actor
1941 Dana Ivey, American actress
1943 Deborah Walley, American actress (d. 2001)
1945 Ron Mael, American keyboardist (Sparks)
1946 Deborah Howe, American children's writer
1947 Sam Rosen, American sportscaster
1948 Sue Monk Kidd, American author
1949 Rick Ridgeway, American mountaineer
1950 Jim Beaver, American actor and writer
1951 Willie Horton, American murderer and rapist
1954 Sam J. Jones, American actor
1954 Pat Metheny, American guitarist
1955 Ann M. Martin, American children's writer
1955 Terry Taylor, American professional wrestler
1965 Peter Krause, American actor
1968 Andras Jones, American actor
1970 Jim Schlossnagle, American baseball coach
1970 Anthony Swofford, American novelist
1971 Michael Ian Black, American comedian
1971 Yvette Nicole Brown, American actress
1971 Rebecca Gayheart, American actress
1971 Pete Sampras, American tennis player
1973 Jonathan Coachman, American professional wrestler and executive
1973 Todd Marchant, American ice hockey player
1973 Richard Reid, British terrorist (the "Shoe Bomber")
1974 Matt Clement, American baseball player
1975 Casey Affleck, American actor
1977 Plaxico Burress, American football player
1978 Chris Chambers, American football player
1979 D.J. Houlton, American baseball player
1980 Maggie Lawson, American actress
1980 Dominique Swain, American actress
1980 Jade Villalon, American singer-songwriter
1987 Leah Pipes, American actress
30 BC Cleopatra VII (b. 69 BC)
1484 Pope Sixtus IV (b. 1414)
1689 Pope Innocent XI (b. 1611)
1849 Albert Gallatin, Swiss-American politician, 4th United States Secretary of the Treasury (b. 1761)
1861 Eliphalet Remington, American inventor (b. 1793)
1891 James Russell Lowell, American poet and essayist (b. 1819)
1896 Thomas Chamberlain, American Civil War military figure (b. 1841)
1900 James Edward Keeler age 42 (b 10 Sep 1857) American astronomer who confirmed Maxwell's theory that the rings of Saturn were not solid (requiring uniform rotation), but composed of meteoric particles (with rotational velocity given by Kepler's 3rd law). His spectrogram of 9 Apr 1895 of the rings of Saturn showed the Doppler shift indicating variation of radial velocity along the slit. At the age of 21, he observed the solar eclipse of Jul 1878, with the Naval Observatory expedition to Colorado. He directed the Allegheny Observatory (1891-8) and the Lick Observatory from 1898, where, working with the Crossley reflector, he observed large numbers of nebulae whose existence had never before been suspected. He died unexpectedly of a stroke, age 42
1914 John Philip Holland age 74 (b 29 Feb 1840) Irish inventor known as the “father of the modern submarine,” who designed and built the first underwater vessel accepted by the U.S. Navy. In 1873, he emigrated to the U.S. where, with financial support from the Irish Fenian Society (who hoped to use submarines against England), he built the Fenian Ram, a small sub that proved a limited success in a test run. In 1895, his J.P. Holland Torpedo Boat Company received a contract from the U.S. Navy to build a submarine, and in 1898 a successful Holland, the first truly practical submarine, was launched. The U.S. government ordered six more; similar orders came from England, Japan, and Russia. Holland's final years were marked by litigation with his financial backers.
1918 Anna Held, Polish-born American actress and singer (b. 1872)
1918 William Thompson, American archer (b. 1848)
1944 Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., brother of President John F. Kennedy (b. 1915)
1955 James Batcheller Sumner age 67 (b 19 Nov 1887) American biochemist who shared (with John Howard Northrop and Wendell Meredith Stanley) the 1946 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Sumner was the first to crystallize an enzyme to show that enzymes were proteins. He learned to live one-handed from age 17, due to an accident. After earning his Ph.D. (1914), he joined the faculty of Cornell University Medical College. By 1917, he began investigating the protein nature of enzymes. It was technically difficult, taking nine years, before he produced a crystalline globulin with high urease activity in 1926. The significance of his work went unappreciated for a number of years, but by 1946, he was awarded a half-share of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, “for his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized.” In 1947 he became director of a new laboratory for enzyme chemistry, at Cornell.
1959 Mike O'Neill, Irish-born American baseball player (b. 1877)
1964 Ian Fleming, English novelist, creator of James Bond (b. 1908)
1967 Esther Forbes, American novelist (b. 1891)
1982 Henry Fonda, American actor (b. 1905)
1984 Lenny Breau, American jazz guitarist (b. 1941)
1988 Jean-Michel Basquiat, American painter and graffiti artist (b. 1960)
1989 William Bradford Shockley age 79 (b 13 Feb 1910) English-American physicist and engineer who shared (with John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain) the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics for their development of the transistor, a device that largely replaced the bulkier and less-efficient vacuum tube and ushered in the age of microminiature electronics.
1990 B. Kliban, American cartoonist (b. 1935)
1990 Dorothy Mackaill, British-born American actress (b. 1903)
1992 John Cage, American composer (b. 1912)
1996 Mark Gruenwald, American comic book writer and editor (b. 1953)
1997 Luther Allison, American blues guitarist (b. 1939)
2000 Loretta Young, American actress (b. 1913)
2002 Enos Slaughter, American baseball player (b. 1916)
2007 Merv Griffin, American television host and game show creator (b. 1925)
2007 Mike Wieringo, American comic book artist (b. 1963)
2010 Isaac Bonewits, American writer and neopaganist (b. 1949
Holidays and observances
Christian Feast Day:
Euplius
Herculanus of Brescia
Pope Innocent XI
August 12 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
Martyr Anicletus of Nicomedia (305)
Martyr Photius of Nicomedia (306)
Martyrs Pamphilus and Capito (3rd century)
Hieromartyr Alexander of Comana, bishop (3rd century)
Saint Pallamon of Egypt, instructor of Saint Pachomius the Great ca. (323)
Saints Sergius and Stephen, monks and soldier-martyrs of Crete
Hieromartyrs Gerontius and Serapion (hieromonks), Otar (deacon), Monk-martyrs Germanus, Bessarion, and Michael, and Martyr Symeon, of Davit Gareji Monastery, Georgia (1851)
www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_12_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_12
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.christianity.com/churchhistory/
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
www.daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.amug.org/~jpaul/aug12.html
www.todayinsci.com/8/8_12.htm
There are 142 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days until Election Day, Tuesday November 6, 2012: 87
Countdown until Obama leaves Office www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
It is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseid
30 BC Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.
3 B.C. A planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Venus was visible that may have been the Star of Bethlehem mentioned in the New Testament. In this pre-dawn, “morning star” conjunction, the two planets appeared very close to each other in the sky (a mere 0.07° apart as viewed from Earth). It occurred when the planets were in the last degrees of the zodiacal sign of Cancer which was the concluding sign for interpreting that astrological year. The same two planets met again just ten months later (17 Jun 2 B.C.), even more closely, almost touching (0.01°), in an “evening star” conjunction in the first degrees of Leo, the beginning sign of the new astrological year. These two unions of Jupiter and Venus might have been interpreted as the close of one age in history amd the beginning of another age in 2 B.C.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_Bethlehem#Astronomical_object
1099 First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ascalon
Monument at the Didgori field, Georgia
1121 Battle of Didgori: the Georgian army under King David the Builder wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Didgori
1164 Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Harim
1323 Signature of the Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod (Russia), that regulates the border between the two countries for the first time.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_N%C3%B6teborg
1480 Battle of Otranto: Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians on the Hill of the Minerva for refusing to convert to Islam.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Otranto
1499 First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zonchio
1624 The president of Louis XIII of France's royal council is arrested, leaving Cardinal Richelieu in the role of the King's principal minister.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu#Chief_minister
1676 Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alderman
1687 Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottomans.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moh%C3%A1cs
1778 A Rhode Island hurricane prevented an impending British-French sea battle, and caused extensive damage over southeast New England.
1806 Santiago de Liniers re-takes the city of Buenos Aires after the first British invasion.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Liniers
1812 Archibald Alexander Assumed Princeton Post
"Who is he that speaks? It is the voice of 'Immanuel, God with us.' What man or angel could invite a guilty world to come to him. Neither Moses nor Elijah, nor Paul, nor John, presumed to call men to look to them for rest. Only He in whom 'dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,' could give rest to every troubled soul."
The preacher was Alexander Archibald, a man who had memorized the catechism at seven, and begun his Latin studies even earlier. As a youth he was an expert swimmer and horseman. At seventeen he made a public profession of faith in Christ. He preached his first sermon shortly afterward, without any preparation, because he was asked to fill in at the last moment. He spoke so clearly and confidently that the Presbyterian Church licensed him to preach when he was just nineteen. The move was justified: Alexander soon led a revival in North Carolina.
After 1812, the lecture halls of Princeton were also stirred by his passion for Christ. For Archibald had urged the creation of a seminary; and on this day, August 12, 1812, the denomination chose him to be the first Professor at the Theological Seminary of Princeton. He not only organized all the courses but taught them all himself! He stamped the seminary with deep scholarship and Christian fervor.
Princeton began as The College of New Jersey in 1746 as a result of the Great Awakening. Like many of the early colleges and universities of the United States, it was established mostly to teach ministers. Several of its key supporters were graduates of the "Log College" run by fiery revivalist Gilbert Tennent.
For centuries, a single individual could master in a lifetime all that was taught at university. But knowledge increased so much after the scientific revolution that by the nineteenth century no one man could learn all there was to know. Educational leaders found it necessary to create separate medical schools, law schools and seminaries. Seminaries were also needed to provide pastors for the growing population of the western United States. Princeton Theological Seminary was opened in response to these developments.
Its purpose was "to unite in those who shall sustain the ministerial office, religion and literature; that piety of the heart, which is the fruit only of the renewing and sanctifying grace of God, with solid learning; believing that religion without learning, or learning without religion, in the ministers of the gospel, must ultimately prove injurious to the church."
Archibald combined the learning and faith that the school hoped to impart to its students. For example, because zealots claimed that the Bible forbids drinking, he deliberately sipped a little wine in company just to show that the Bible says nothing of the kind.
His appeals were not just intellectual but to the heart, as these words from his sermon show: "Do not for a moment suppose that you must make yourself better, or prepare your heart for a worthy reception of Christ, but come at once--come as you are. He saves none because their sins are comparatively few and unnoticed by their fellow-men; he rejects none because their sins are many and great....The promise is that he will give you rest. And this includes pardon and acceptance with God. It includes a deliverance from the condemnation and the tyranny of sin, from fear and remorse, from all spiritual enemies and all vain self-righteous hopes. It is a cordial for an accusing conscience, it is consolation for the oppressed, it is peace for the troubled spirit, it is a balm for every evil that can afflict us in our passage through life, and it is the earnest and pledge of the glorious, pure, eternal rest of heaven."
www.christianity.com/ChurchHistory/11630367/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Alexander
1851 Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine with a rocking treadle. Although a sewing machine had already been patented, Singer's sewing machine was revolutionary, having a double treadle. With patent in hand, Isaac set up shop in Boston, Massachusetts and began to manufacture his invention. Even after huge settlements paid to Elias Howe, another sewing machine patent holder, Singer, through business innovations like installment buying, after-sale servicing and trade-in allowances, had the marketplace all sewn up.
1865 Dr. Joseph Lister became the first surgeon perform an antiseptic operation by liberal use of carbolic acid (phenol) as a disinfectant. He had studied Louis Pasteur's germ theory of disease, that infections are caused by bacteria. Lister knew carbolic acid had been effective in municipal use for treating sewage, and decided to try using it to kill germs that would otherwise infect wounds. He poured it on bandages, ligatures, instruments and directly on the wound and hands. His first patient to benefit from this procedure was James Greenlees, age 12, whose broken leg was treated after being run over by a cart. The dressing was soaked with carbolic acid and linseed oil. The wound healed without infection. Lister continued his protocol of hygiene, and reduced the surgical death rate from 45% to 15%.
1867 President Andrew Johnson defies Congress suspending Edwin Stanton. In March 1867 Congress passed the first of the Reconstruction Acts that provided for Negro suffrage. Johnson attempted to veto the legislation but when this failed, he managed to delay the program and undermined its ineffectiveness.
Secretary of War Stanton made it clear he disagreed with Andrew Johnson and in 1867 the president attempted to force him from office and replace him with Ulysses S. Grant. Stanton refused to go and was supported by the Senate. Grant now stood down and was replaced by Lorenzo Thomas. This was a violation of the Tenure of Office Act and some members of the Republican Party began talking about impeaching Johnson.
1877 Thomas Alva Edison, though this date is often given as the date of a finished model of his first phonograph, may have actually only made a sketch. Some correspondence in Sep 1877 suggests Edison was at work on his ideas for what became his cylinder phonograph, though construction of a working model may not have begun until 4 Dec, according to the diary of one of Edison's aides. Indeed, Edison did not file for the patent until 24 Dec 1877. The idea came to him while working on a telegraph transmitter, when he noticed that when the tape of the machine was played at high speed, it gave off a noise resembling spoken words. After experimenting with a needle attached to the diaphragm of a telephone receiver to prick paper tape to record a message, his idea evolved to using a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder
1879 First National Archery Association tournament (Chicago) In 1878, Maurice Thompson wrote a book, "The Witchery of Archery," which inspired the formation of more than twenty archery clubs in less than a year. They met at Crawfordsville in 1879 to establish the National Archery Association, which held the first national tournament that year at White Stocking Park in Chicago. Will Thompson won the first national men's championship and went to win four more titles, the last in 1908.
1883 The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam. It was not realised at that time that she was the very last of her kind. Because of the confusion caused by the indiscriminate use of the term "quagga" for any zebra, the true quagga had been hunted to extinction without this being realised until much later. The Quagga, formerly inhabited the Karoo and southern Free State of South Africa. Like other grazing mammals, quaggas had been ruthlessly hunted. The settlers saw them as competitors for the grazing of their livestock, mainly sheep and goats. Now, by breeding with selected southern plains zebras an attempt is being made, started by Reinhold Rau, to retrieve at least the genes responsible for the Quaggas colouration.The quagga (Equus quagga quagga) is an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra, which was once found in great numbers in the Highveld of the Cape Province and the southern part of the Orange Free State in South Africa. It was distinguished from other zebras by having the usual vivid marks on the front part of the body only. In the mid-section, the stripes faded and the dark, inter-stripe spaces became wider, and the rear parts were a plain brown. The name comes from a Khoikhoi word for zebra and is onomatopoeic, being said to resemble the quagga's call. The only quagga to have been photographed alive was a mare at the Zoological Society of London's Zoo in Regent's Park in 1870.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga
Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador in the U.S., signing the memorandum of ratification on behalf of Spain.
1898 An Armistice ends the Spanish-American War.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-American_War#Making_peace
1898 The Hawaiian flag is lowered from Iolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawai`i to the United States.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawai%60i#Annexation.E2.80.94the_Territory_of_Hawaii_.281898.E2.80.931959.29
1914 World War I: the United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/summary_01.shtml
1918 Regular air-mail service began between New York City and Washington, DC. Careful preliminary study and consideration had been given this new undertaking and on May 15, 1918, the first air mail route in the United States was established between New York, N. Y., and Washington, D. C., with a stop at Philadelphia, Pa., for the exchange of mails or plane. The distance of the route was approximately 218 miles and the frequency of service was one round trip daily, except Sunday. This service was inaugurated with the cooperation of the War Department, which furnished the planes and pilots and conducted the flying and maintenance operations, the Post Office Department handling the mail and matters relating thereto.
The cooperation of the War Department, which was of great value, was maintained until August 12, 1918, when the Post Office Department took over the entire operation of the route, furnishing its own equipment and personnel.
1928 9th Olympic Games close in Amsterdam
1930 Clarence Birdseye patented a method for packaging frozen foods. From 1912 to 1916, when a fellow by the name of Colonel Clarence Birdseye was fur-trapping in Labrador, he witnessed the Inuit preserving their food by fast freezing it. This process prevented ice crystals from forming on the food and causing spoilage by puncturing the cells. By 1929, Birdseye had produced packages of frozen vegetables, meat and other items that were sold at grocery stores.
1933 The temperature at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley, CA, hit 127 degrees to establish a U.S. record for the month of August.
1934 Babe Ruth's final game at Fenway Park. Widely considered to be the best player of all time, Ruth was the prototype of the modern superstar. He was the first player to hit 30, 40, 50, and 60 home runs in a season, and his slugging style forever changed the way baseball was played.
Making a farewell appearance in Boston, Babe Ruth draws a record 46,766 fans, with an estimated 20,000 turned away at Fenway Park where he began his career as a pitcher 20 years ago. Ruth singles and doubles in the first game, but the Yankees lose to Wes Ferrell 6-4. Walks hold him to one official at bat in the second game, which the Yankees win, and he leaves the field to standing cheers in the 8th inning.
1936 Diver Marjorie Gestring becomes youngest Olympic gold medalist. At only 13 years and 9 months old, Gestring became the youngest individual gold medalist in Olympic history when she won the springboard diving championship in 1936. She may well have been deprived of another medal or two by World War II, which forced the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics.
Gestring won the national outdoor 3-meter springboard championship in 1937, 1938, and 1940; the indoor 3-meter from 1936 through 1938; and the outdoor platform in 1939 and 1940. She made a comeback to compete in the 1948 Olympic trials, but finished fourth and failed to qualify for the team.
1936 The temperature at Seymour, TX, hit 120 degrees to establish a state record.
1937 Comedian Red Skelton got his first taste of network radio. Skelton appeared on the "Rudy Vallee Show" on NBC. Soon after Red had his own radio show which ran from 1941-1953. The show provided an opportunity to present his unique brand of comedy to a mass audience. During this time, he further developed his trademark characters that included: Freddie the Freeloader, Clem Kadiddlehopper, Willy Lump Lump, Cauliflower McPugg, The Mean Widdle Kid, San Fernando Red, and, of course, the cross-eyed seagulls, Gertrude and Heathcliffe.
1944 Waffen SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
1944 Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant%27Anna_di_Stazzema_massacre
1944 Alençon is liberated by General Leclerc, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alen%C3%A7on#History
Section of pipeline showing lead core and successive protective layers
1944 The first fuel-carrying PLUTO (Pipe-Line Under The Ocean) under the English Channel became operational supplying fuel from the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg for vehicles of the Allied forces in France. This over 70 mile pipe was laid in just 10 hours, and is one of the greatest feats of military engineering. The scheme was developed by A.C. Hartley, chief engineer with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, from an idea by Admiral Louis Mountbatten to relieve dependence on vulnerable oil tankers. Prototypes of the pipeline were tested at several locations starting in May 1942. Britain and the U.S. then produced sufficient pipe to eventually lay 18 pipelines between England and France pumping 781 million litres of fuel by VE day.*
1947 The Ayor Came out of the Jungle. Today, New Tribes Mission is one of the largest in the world. In November, 1942, they sent out their first team, a group of ten men and women with six children. They sailed for Bolivia. Five of the men would never return.
When they arrived in Bolivia, the team decided to open work with the Ayoré tribe, known to Bolivians as barbarians. Because of encroachment on their territory, the Ayoré were infamous for savage attacks on intruders.
As the missionary team worked their way toward their destination, they shared the Gospel. The team even converted 100 Bolivians to Christ before they reached their place of work! In June, 1943, the men left Roboré, the last outpost of civilization. Soon they were chopping their way through South America's "green hell"--the jungle. They wanted to make contact with the Ayoré in the jungle, away from areas where the "barbarians" had been killed or captured in the past. Although the missionaries had guns, they carried them only for hunting and protection from jaguars. They had made up their minds to send the weapons home as soon as they found themselves near the Ayoré, not wishing to risk killing any Ayoré.
Attacked by thorns, insects and malaria, they pressed on, willing to lay down their lives if only the Ayoré might hear about the glorious Christ. When they found a creek that they believed the Ayoré used, they sent their guns home. Dave Bacon, Cecil and Bob Dye, George Hosback and Eldon Hunter pressed forward, hoping to tell the Indians about the Jesus who left majesty to die for them. "If you don't hear anything inside a month, you can come search for us," said Cecil to the two men who were taking the guns back.
A month came and went without a word. Searchers set out, but did not find the missing men. Later in an Ayoré camp, they found personal items belonging to the men. It would be eight years before the facts were known.
The remaining missionaries continued to try to contact the Ayoré, leaving gifts for them. Eventually they made friends. On this day, August 12, 1947, a group of Ayoré laid down their weapons and came out of the jungle.
In 1950, an Ayoré man who had been present told what happened to the five missionaries who never came back. The missionaries had walked into an Ayoré camp and left gifts in front of the surprised natives. Because one warrior wanted a bigger gift, the five Gospel-bearers were killed.
The chief was away at the time. Upon his return, he rebuked his men for the killing. Clearly the white men were not enemies. He buried them in the camp.
Were their deaths a waste? Other New Tribes missionaries looked at them as five seeds. As Cecil Dye had written before his death, "...perhaps more Christians at home would become more aware of their responsibility to lost men and less concerned over the material things of this life if the expedition failed and we lost our lives."
www.christianity.com/ChurchHistory/11630787/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tribes_Mission#Early_history
1950 Bloody Gulch massacre : American POWs were massacred by North Korean Army.
1952 The Night of the Murdered Poets: 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow. All defendants were falsely accused of espionage and treason as well as many other crimes. After their arrests, they were tortured, beaten, and isolated for three years before being formally charged. There were five Yiddish writers among these defendants, all of whom were a part of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Murdered_Poets
1952 American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal: 'I must come to be aware of Satan. He may never get me into hell, but he may cause God shame in defeating me. Preserve me from the lion, Lord. Let him not swallow me up.'
1953 The Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb, in Kazakhstan. Eight days later, the USSR published (20 Aug 1953) news of the H-bomb test. The explosion, with a yield of 400 kilotons (about 30 times the power of the bomb dropped on Japan, 6 Aug 1945), came less than 10 months after the first U.S. bomb test, "Mike," (1 Nov 1952) announced by President Harry Truman on 7 Jan 1953. Notably, the Soviet bomb was more portable than the U.S. device—small enough to fit in a plane, and be easily weaponizeable, though its size limited the amount of thermonuclear fuel and explosive force. It had their own “layer cake” design of lithium-6 deuteride and tritium fuel layered with uranium. The American test was designed for greater explosive power
1953 The islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia in Greece are severely damaged by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale.
1955 President Eisenhower raises minimum wage from $0.75 to $1 an hour
1955 During the second week of August hurricanes Connie and Diane produced as much as 19 inches of rain in the northeastern U.S. forcing rivers from Virginia to Massachusetts into a high flood. Westfield MA was deluged with 18.15 inches of rain in 24 hours, and at Woonsocket RI the Blackstone River swelled from seventy feet in width to a mile and a half. Connecticut and the Delaware Valley were hardest hit. Total damage in New England was 800 million dollars, and flooding claimed 187 lives.
1960 Echo 1A, NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral, packed in a Thor-Delta rocket. At the altitude for low Earth orbit, above almost all of the Earth's atmosphere, the satellite was deployed and inflated with gas at low pressure to form a 100-ft (30.5-m) diameter spherical balloon made of metallized Mylar, 0.5 mils (12.7-μm) thick. Thus it is known as a balloon satellite, as originally conceived by William J. O'Sullivan (26 Jan 1956). Its orbit was at about 1,000 miles (1600-km). It was merely passive, to reflect microwave signals between points on Earth, similar to the way the Moon reflects light while the Sun is below the horizon. A commemorative stamp was issued 15 Dec 1960. Echo 1 remained in orbit until 24 May 1968. Telstar 1 followed 10 Jul 1962.
1960 Ralph Boston of the US, sets then long jump record at 26' 11".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Boston
1960 USAF Major Robert Michael White takes X-15 to 136,490 feet. While Walker pushed the top speed of the X-15, Major Bob White was assigned to fly the high altitude flights. His first altitude record attempt was aborted before launch on August 11, 1960. The next day Major Fulton and Major Allavie launched Major White from the NB-52A over Silver Lake. He flew the maximum lift over drag profile to an altitude of 60,000 feet. He leveled off and accelerated to mach 1.9. He then pulled up at 1.5 g's until he had pulled the stick all the way to its limit of travel. The engine burned out at an altitude of 120,000 feet and the X-15 coasted on up to 136,500 feet. This was the first flight to exceed Ivan Kinchloe's record, 125,907 feet attained in the X-2 on September 7, 1956. The top speed attained by the X-15-1 on the flight was mach 2.52 (1,772 miles per hour).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Michael_White
1964 10th time Mantle switch-hits HR in a game, one goes 502 feet. Mickey Mantle homers from each side of the plate in the same game for the 10th and final time, a ML record, and New York beats Chicago 7-3 at Yankee Stadium. Mel Stottlemyre, in his major league debut, is the winner, scattering seven hits.
1973 Chuck Colson's 1st Geniune Prayer. I have accepted Jesus Christ. I have committed my whole life to Him and it has been the most marvelous experience of my life." The words by Tom Philips staggered Chuck Colson. Colson didn't understand. Everyone knew Jesus Christ was dead two thousand years ago. Tom had more to say. "I had gotten to the point where I didn't think my life was worth anything. Now everything is changed--attitudes, values the whole bit." He would like to tell Colson the whole story, he said. To Colson it didn't make sense. Tom was the successful president of Raytheon, a huge electronics firm in Massachusetts. What did he need religion for?
Chuck Colson was by then out of the White House, working for a law firm. Accused in the press of being one of the central figures of the Watergate mess, he would later prove to have had less to do with it than the rest of the principal actors. At the time stories were still leaking out. Falsehoods were printed about him in the press. Hours of testimony loomed before him. Facing all this, he could not forget Tom's peace and his own inner ache.
On this day, Sunday August 12, 1973, Chuck Colson sat again in Tom Philip's house. Sipping tea together, Tom hit at Colson kindly but honestly. The whole White House staff had put their trust in themselves. They had tried to destroy their political enemies because they had no faith in their cause or in God. Colson felt the words were true. He respected Tom too much to doubt his sincere concern.
When Tom began to read aloud to him from C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity the words cut into Colson's heart. He saw himself as a man of pride who had ruined his own life by his hubris. "How about it?" Tom asked Chuck. Chuck said he wasn't ready yet. He had some hurdles to get over. He didn't want a foxhole religion. Tom nodded and gave him the book. "Read it," he suggested. "And read the gospel of John." He read some psalms to Colson. The words seemed to come alive. And then Tom asked Chuck if he would like him to pray with him.
Tom Phillip's prayer was so rich, so intimate that Chuck Colson felt the power and Spirit of Christ sweep over him. He had to fight back tears. God seemed to be sitting right beside him.
In his car, Colson found he couldn't drive. Tears were pouring from his eyes. He started back to Tom's house, but the lights went out. Sobbing uncontrollably, he turned on the car and drove a couple hundred feet. There he offered himself to God, admitting it wasn't much of an offer. "Take me, take me," he pleaded. For the first time in his life he felt he wasn't alone. It was the beginning of a transformation which would lead him to found Prison Fellowship and make him a respected Christian author.
www.christianity.com/ChurchHistory/11630833/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Colson
1974 Nolan Ryan strikes-out 19 Red Sox and walks only two as the Angels top the Red Sox 4-2. Baseball's all-time strikeout leader and author of a major-league record seven no-hitters, Ryan was in many ways the most remarkable pitcher ever to play the game.
1976 Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_al-Zaatar_massacre
1977 High Energy Astronomy Observatory 1 launched into Earth orbit. The first of NASA's three High Energy Astronomy Observatories, HEAO 1 was launched aboard an Atlas Centaur rocket on 12 August 1977 and operated until 9 January 1979. During that time, it scanned the X-ray sky almost three times over 0.2 keV - 10 MeV, provided nearly constant monitoring of X-ray sources near the ecliptic poles, as well as more detailed studies of a number of objects through pointed observations.
1977 The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise, a Shuttle Approach and Landing Test, at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. It was launched mounted atop a Boeing 747 carrier, and separated from it in flight. Then it freely glided, on its own, in flight within the Earth's atmosphere. It touched down, landing like an airplane, on a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert. Designated Orbiter Vehicle OV-101, it was a prototype built only for testing; it was never equipped for space flight. It was named Enterprise after the Star Trek spacecraft. After being rolled out of Rockwell's assembly facility (17 Sep 1976), it was transported 36 miles overland to Dryden (31 Jan 1977). Its first captive flight test was on 18 Feb 1977.
1978 The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China is signed.
1980 The Montevideo Treaty, establishing the Latin American Integration Association, is signed.
1981 IBM introduced the PC personal computer for $1,600 base price. It shortly eliminated most other machines suitable for home or small business such as those with the S-100 bus, running on CP/M or their own operating system. The PC was developed in less than a year at IBM's Boca Raton Florida facility by using existing off-the-shelf components. The IBM-PC established the dominance of the Microsoft operating system. The IBM PC hardware design also became the industry standard for PC compatibles, with the ISA bus. Its Intel 8080 processor speed was 4.77 MHz, and it used from 16K up to 640K of memory. Data storage choices included 5.25" floppy drives, cassette tape, and later hard disks
1981 Jon Erikson (US) becomes first to triple cross English Channel (38:27)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Erikson
1982 Mexico announces it is unable to pay its enormous external debt, marking the beginning of a debt crisis that spreads to all of Latin America and the Third World.
1985 Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
1986 Don Baylor gets hits by a pitch for a record 25th time in a season. Boston's Don Baylor sets an American League record when he is hit by a pitch for the 25th time, breaking the season record he held with Bill Freehan (1968) and Kid Elberfeld (1911). The Royals Bud Black does the plunking in a 5-1 win. Baylor will end the season being hit 35 times: the major-league record is 50 by Ron Hunt.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Baylor
1987 Early afternoon thunderstorms in Arizona produced 3.90 inches of rain in ninety minutes at Walnut National Monument (located east of Flagstaff), along with three inches of pea size hail, which had to be plowed off the roads.
1988 In Hollywood, the controversial religious movie "The Last Temptation of Christ" was released, sparking protests from evangelical church groups across the nation.
1988 Fifteen cities in the northeastern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. Youngstown OH reported twenty-six days of 90 degree weather for the year, a total equal to that for the entire decade of the 1970s.
1989 Thunderstorms were scattered across nearly every state in the Union by late in the day. Thunderstorms produced wind gusts to 75 mph at Fergus Falls MN, and golf ball size hail and wind gusts to 60 mph at Black Creek WI. In the Chicago area, seven persons at a forest preserve in North Riverside were injured by lightning.
1990 The first three fossil bones were discovered which were part of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton subsequently unearthed. Susan Hendrickson found them while hunting fossils at a cliff near Faith, in the Black Hills of S. Dakota. When fully excavated and cleaned, the skeleton, thereafter nicknamed Sue, was a remarkable specimen, over 90% complete, with very well-preserved bones. Furthermore, it was the largest T. rex ever found—42-ft long, with a one-ton 5-ft long skull. After lengthy legal proceedings to establish ownership, the verdict was that it came from federal land and the U.S. claimed the bones. Eventually, on 4 Oct 1997, the bones were sold at auction to the Field Museum, Chicago, for 8.36 million (paid in part by corporate donations) and assembled for display from 17 May 2000
1992 Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
1994 Major League Baseball players go on strike. This will force the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Births ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1681 Vitus Jonassen Bering (d 19 Dec 1741 age 60) Danish-Russian navigator who helped establish that Asia and America are two separate continents. He joined the Dutch navy as a young man, and later the Russian navy. He was commissioned by Tsar Peter the Great to travel the coast of Asia to see if it was connected to North America. He sailed through the Bering Strait in 1728. He discovered Alaska on his second voyage (1741), with several scientists on board, explored its coast, and discovered the Aleutian Islands. He died stranded during the winter following a shipwreck. The Bering Sea and Bering Island (where he died) are also named for him
1781 Robert Mills (d 3 Mar 1855 age 73) American architect and engineer who designed the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. Mills also designed buildings in several Eastern states. In 1836, he won the competition for the design of the Washington Monument. Construction began in 1848 and proceeded slowly because of a lack of funds. The monument was only 152-ft high when Mills died in 1855; only in 1878 did Congress appropriate money to complete the structure, which was finished at 555-ft in 1884. He also designed the Department of Treasury building and several other federal buildings. His diverse interests included mapping and making a directory of lighthouses. He adopted fire-proofing measures in the design of buildings
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mills_(architect)
1812 Ephraim Ball (died 1 Jan 1872 at age 59) American inventor and manufacturer whose "Ball's Ohio Mower" (patented 1 Dec1857) was the first widely successful of the two-wheeled flexible or hinged bar mowers, which greatly influenced the change from single driving-wheel machines to those with double drivers. His first invention was a turn-top stove. In 1840 he established a foundry for making ploughs. The “Ball's Blue Plough” he invented sold well. In 1851, he joined with others to form a larger company with factories at Canton, Ohio. His “Ohio Mower” (1854), “World Mower and Reaper,” and “Buckeye Machine” (1858) sold extensively. Thereafter his “New American Harvester”" produced up to 10,000 of these machines annually (1865). Nevertheless, he died impoverished.
1838 Joseph Barnby, English organist and choirmaster. He composed nearly 250 hymn tunes during his life. Of these the most enduring include LAUDES DOMINI ("When Morning Gilds the Skies"), LONGWOOD ("Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart"), MERRIAL ("Now the Day is Over") and ST. ANDREW ("We Give Thee But Thine Own").
www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/a/r/n/barnby_j.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Barnby
1856 Diamond Jim Brady, American financier (d. 1917)
1859 Katherine Lee Bates, (d 1929) American English teacher and poet. She published over 20 books, but is best remembered today for writing the patriotic hymn, "America, the Beautiful" (a.k.a. "O Beautiful for Spacious Skies").
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Lee_Bates
www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/a/t/bates_kl.htm
1867 Edith Hamilton, German-born American classicist (d. 1963)
1876 Mary Roberts Rinehart, American mystery writer (d. 1958)
1880 Christy Mathewson, American baseball player (d. 1925)
1881 Cecil B. DeMille, (d 1959) American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies. Among his best-known films are Cleopatra; Samson and Delilah; The Greatest Show on Earth, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture; and The Ten Commandments, which was his last and most successful film.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_B._DeMille
1882 Vincent Hugo Bendix (d 27 Mar 1945 age 62) American inventor who developed systems for automobiles and aircraft and companies to manufacture them. His first, the short-lived Bendix Company of Chicago (1907-9) made a car called the Bendix Buggy. In 1910, he invented the Bendix drive which made the electric self-starter possible. It used a gear to engage with the engine at low rotational speed then fly back, disengaging automatically at higher speed. The first four-wheel brake system for automobiles was his creation. He entered aviation systems production in 1929 with the Bendix Aviation Corporation (later be renamed Bendix Corporation), and started Bendix Helicopters, Inc. in 1942. During WW II, Bendix was the major source of U.S. aviation electronics
1883 Pauline Frederick, American actress (d. 1938)
1883 Martha Hedman, Swedish-American actress (d. 1974)
1883 Marion Lorne, American actress (d. 1968)
1889 Zerna Sharp, (d 1981) American writer and educator known for creating the Dick and Jane beginning readers, and many other readers for children. Sharp noted the reduced reading ability of children during her travels and urged a new reading format for primers. She suggested that primers introduce a word at a time to new readers, and the Dick and Jane primers adhered to this format. The names "Dick" and "Jane" were chosen because they were easy to sound. The primers were sold from 1927 to 1973.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerna_Sharp
1890 Al Goodman Nikopol Russia, conductor, songwriter, stage composer, musical director, arranger, and pianist. (NBC Comedy Hour)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Goodman
1891 C. E. M. Joad, English philosopher and broadcaster (d. 1953)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._E._M._Joad#Rise_and_fall
1892 Alfred Lunt, American actor (d. 1977)
1897 Otto Struve (d 6 Apr 1963 age 65) Russian-American astronomer who was a fourth generation astronomer, the great-grandson of Friedrich Struve. He made detailed spectroscopic investigations of stars, especially close binaries and peculiar stars, the interstellar medium (where he discovered H II regions), and gaseous nebulae. He contributed to the understanding of the broadening of spectral lines due to stellar rotation, electric fields, and turbulence and worked to separate these effects from each other and from chemical abundances. He was a pioneer in the study of mass transfer in closely interacting binary stars. Struve emigrated to the USA (1921) and joined the Yerkes Observatory, Wisconsin, becoming its director in 1932.
1906 Tedd Pierce, American animator (d. 1972)
1907 Joe Besser, American actor and comedian (d. 1988)
1910 Jane Wyatt, American actress (d. 2006)
1912 Samuel Fuller, American film director (d. 1997)
1913 Richard Bare, American director
1915 Michael Kidd, American choreographer (d. 2007)
1925 Dale Bumpers, American politician
1925 Norris McWhirter, Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records (d. 2004)
1925 Ross McWhirter, Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records (d. 1975)
1925 George Wetherill, American physicist (d. 2006)
1926 John Derek, American actor (d. 1998)
1926 Joe Jones, American R&B singer (d. 2005)
1926 Wallace Markfield, American writer (d. 2002)
1927 Porter Wagoner, American singer (d. 2007)
1928 Bob Buhl, American baseball player (d. 2001)
1928 Dan Curtis, American film and television producer and director (d.2006)
1929 Buck Owens, American singer (d. 2006)
1930 George Soros Hungarian-born American financier and political activist
1931 William Goldman, American screenwriter
1932 Dallin H. Oaks, American The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apostle and former Utah Supreme Court Justice
1932 Charlie O'Donnell, American game show announcer (d. 2010)
1933 Parnelli Jones, American race car driver and team owner
1932 Porter Wagoner country singer, discovered Dolly Parton (Y'All Come)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_Wagoner
1935 John Cazale, American actor (d. 1978)
1936 John Poindexter retired United States naval officer and Department of Defense official. He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor for the Reagan administration. He was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies as a result of his actions in the Iran-Contra affair, but his convictions were reversed on appeal in 1991. More recently, he served a brief stint as the director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office for the George W. Bush administration. He was the father of NASA astronaut Alan Poindexter.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Poindexter
1937 Walter Dean Myers, American novelist and poet
1939 Skip Caray, American TV and radio baseball announcer (Atlanta Braves) (d. 2008)
1939 George Hamilton, American actor
1941 Dana Ivey, American actress
1943 Deborah Walley, American actress (d. 2001)
1945 Ron Mael, American keyboardist (Sparks)
1946 Deborah Howe, American children's writer
1947 Sam Rosen, American sportscaster
1948 Sue Monk Kidd, American author
1949 Rick Ridgeway, American mountaineer
1950 Jim Beaver, American actor and writer
1951 Willie Horton, American murderer and rapist
1954 Sam J. Jones, American actor
1954 Pat Metheny, American guitarist
1955 Ann M. Martin, American children's writer
1955 Terry Taylor, American professional wrestler
1965 Peter Krause, American actor
1968 Andras Jones, American actor
1970 Jim Schlossnagle, American baseball coach
1970 Anthony Swofford, American novelist
1971 Michael Ian Black, American comedian
1971 Yvette Nicole Brown, American actress
1971 Rebecca Gayheart, American actress
1971 Pete Sampras, American tennis player
1973 Jonathan Coachman, American professional wrestler and executive
1973 Todd Marchant, American ice hockey player
1973 Richard Reid, British terrorist (the "Shoe Bomber")
1974 Matt Clement, American baseball player
1975 Casey Affleck, American actor
1977 Plaxico Burress, American football player
1978 Chris Chambers, American football player
1979 D.J. Houlton, American baseball player
1980 Maggie Lawson, American actress
1980 Dominique Swain, American actress
1980 Jade Villalon, American singer-songwriter
1987 Leah Pipes, American actress
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Deaths ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
30 BC Cleopatra VII (b. 69 BC)
1484 Pope Sixtus IV (b. 1414)
1689 Pope Innocent XI (b. 1611)
1849 Albert Gallatin, Swiss-American politician, 4th United States Secretary of the Treasury (b. 1761)
1861 Eliphalet Remington, American inventor (b. 1793)
1891 James Russell Lowell, American poet and essayist (b. 1819)
1896 Thomas Chamberlain, American Civil War military figure (b. 1841)
1900 James Edward Keeler age 42 (b 10 Sep 1857) American astronomer who confirmed Maxwell's theory that the rings of Saturn were not solid (requiring uniform rotation), but composed of meteoric particles (with rotational velocity given by Kepler's 3rd law). His spectrogram of 9 Apr 1895 of the rings of Saturn showed the Doppler shift indicating variation of radial velocity along the slit. At the age of 21, he observed the solar eclipse of Jul 1878, with the Naval Observatory expedition to Colorado. He directed the Allegheny Observatory (1891-8) and the Lick Observatory from 1898, where, working with the Crossley reflector, he observed large numbers of nebulae whose existence had never before been suspected. He died unexpectedly of a stroke, age 42
1914 John Philip Holland age 74 (b 29 Feb 1840) Irish inventor known as the “father of the modern submarine,” who designed and built the first underwater vessel accepted by the U.S. Navy. In 1873, he emigrated to the U.S. where, with financial support from the Irish Fenian Society (who hoped to use submarines against England), he built the Fenian Ram, a small sub that proved a limited success in a test run. In 1895, his J.P. Holland Torpedo Boat Company received a contract from the U.S. Navy to build a submarine, and in 1898 a successful Holland, the first truly practical submarine, was launched. The U.S. government ordered six more; similar orders came from England, Japan, and Russia. Holland's final years were marked by litigation with his financial backers.
1918 Anna Held, Polish-born American actress and singer (b. 1872)
1918 William Thompson, American archer (b. 1848)
1944 Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., brother of President John F. Kennedy (b. 1915)
1955 James Batcheller Sumner age 67 (b 19 Nov 1887) American biochemist who shared (with John Howard Northrop and Wendell Meredith Stanley) the 1946 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Sumner was the first to crystallize an enzyme to show that enzymes were proteins. He learned to live one-handed from age 17, due to an accident. After earning his Ph.D. (1914), he joined the faculty of Cornell University Medical College. By 1917, he began investigating the protein nature of enzymes. It was technically difficult, taking nine years, before he produced a crystalline globulin with high urease activity in 1926. The significance of his work went unappreciated for a number of years, but by 1946, he was awarded a half-share of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, “for his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized.” In 1947 he became director of a new laboratory for enzyme chemistry, at Cornell.
1959 Mike O'Neill, Irish-born American baseball player (b. 1877)
1964 Ian Fleming, English novelist, creator of James Bond (b. 1908)
1967 Esther Forbes, American novelist (b. 1891)
1982 Henry Fonda, American actor (b. 1905)
1984 Lenny Breau, American jazz guitarist (b. 1941)
1988 Jean-Michel Basquiat, American painter and graffiti artist (b. 1960)
1989 William Bradford Shockley age 79 (b 13 Feb 1910) English-American physicist and engineer who shared (with John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain) the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics for their development of the transistor, a device that largely replaced the bulkier and less-efficient vacuum tube and ushered in the age of microminiature electronics.
1990 B. Kliban, American cartoonist (b. 1935)
1990 Dorothy Mackaill, British-born American actress (b. 1903)
1992 John Cage, American composer (b. 1912)
1996 Mark Gruenwald, American comic book writer and editor (b. 1953)
1997 Luther Allison, American blues guitarist (b. 1939)
2000 Loretta Young, American actress (b. 1913)
2002 Enos Slaughter, American baseball player (b. 1916)
2007 Merv Griffin, American television host and game show creator (b. 1925)
2007 Mike Wieringo, American comic book artist (b. 1963)
2010 Isaac Bonewits, American writer and neopaganist (b. 1949
Holidays and observances
Christian Feast Day:
Euplius
Herculanus of Brescia
Pope Innocent XI
August 12 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
Martyr Anicletus of Nicomedia (305)
Martyr Photius of Nicomedia (306)
Martyrs Pamphilus and Capito (3rd century)
Hieromartyr Alexander of Comana, bishop (3rd century)
Saint Pallamon of Egypt, instructor of Saint Pachomius the Great ca. (323)
Saints Sergius and Stephen, monks and soldier-martyrs of Crete
Hieromartyrs Gerontius and Serapion (hieromonks), Otar (deacon), Monk-martyrs Germanus, Bessarion, and Michael, and Martyr Symeon, of Davit Gareji Monastery, Georgia (1851)
www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_12_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_12
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.christianity.com/churchhistory/
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
www.daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.amug.org/~jpaul/aug12.html
www.todayinsci.com/8/8_12.htm