Welcome to the weekend edition of Today in History. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the post. Have an awesome weekend.

1951

Sugar Ray Robinson wins back belt

On September 12, 1951, former middleweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Randy Turpin to win back the belt in front of 61,370 spectators at the Polo Grounds in New York City. Robinson, a New York City native, had lost the belt to Turpin two months prior in Turpin’s native …read more

1993

New floating bridge opens in Seattle; I-90 stretches from coast to coast

On September 12, 1993, the rebuilt Lacey V. Murrow Bridge over Lake Washington opens in Seattle. The new bridge, which was actually the eastbound lanes of Interstate 90 (the westbound lanes cross the lake on a separate bridge), connects the city and its eastern suburbs. It …read more

1995

Harlem Globetrotters’ 8,829-game winning streak snapped

On September 12, 1995, in Vienna, Austria, the Harlem Globetrotters tip off the third game of an 11-game exhibition series in Europe against a team of retired basketball stars led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, aptly named “Kareem’s All-Stars.” Unlike the previous 8,829 games, the …read more

1942

The Laconia is sunk

A German U-boat sinks a British troop ship, the Laconia, killing more than 1,400 men on September 12, 1942. The commander of the German sub, Capt. Werner Hartenstein, realizing that Italians POWs were among the passengers, strove to aid in …read more

1953

John F. Kennedy marries Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island

Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, the future 35th president of the United States, marries Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island on September 12, 1953. Seven years later, the couple would become the youngest president and first lady in American history. Jacqueline …read more

Melinda

Welcome to the weekend edition of Today in History. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the post. Have an awesome weekend.

1847

Outlaw Jesse James is born in Missouri

Seen by some as a vicious murderer and by others as a gallant Robin Hood, the famous outlaw Jesse Woodson James is born on September 5, 1847, in Clay County, Missouri. Jesse and his older brother Franklin lost their father in 1849, when the Reverend Robert James abandoned his …read more

1958

“Doctor Zhivago” is published in the U.S.

Boris Pasternak’s romantic novel, Doctor Zhivago is published in the United States. The book was banned in the Soviet Union, but still won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. Pasternak was born in Russia in 1890, and by the time of the Russian Revolution was a well-known …read more

1972

Massacre begins at Munich Olympics

During the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich, in the early morning of September 5, a group of Palestinian terrorists storms the Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine others hostage. The terrorists were part of a group known as Black …read more

1914

French general gives order to attack at the Marne

On the evening of September 5, 1914, General Joseph Joffre, commander in chief of the French army during World War I, readies his troops for a renewed offensive against the advancing Germans at the Marne River in northeastern France, set to begin the following morning. With the …read more

1877

Sioux military leader Crazy Horse is killed

Oglala Sioux leader Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. A year earlier, Crazy Horse was among the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little …read more

Melinda

Welcome to the weekend edition of Today in History. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the post. Have an awesome weekend.

1958

Michael Jackson is born

Pop sensation Michael Jackson is born on August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana. Jackson began performing with his four brothers in the pop group the Jackson 5 when he was a child. The group scored its first No. 1 single in 1969, with “I Want You Back.” By age 11, Jackson was …read more

1533

Pizarro executes last Inca emperor

Atahuallpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, dies by strangulation at the hands of Francisco Pizarro’s Spanish conquistadors. The execution of Atahuallpa, the last free reigning emperor, marked the end of 300 years of Inca civilization. High in the Andes Mountains of Peru, …read more

1949

Soviets explode atomic bomb

At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name “First Lightning.” In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Sov

1982

Actress Ingrid Bergman dies on her birthday

On August 29, 1982, the Swedish-born actress and three-time Academy Award winner Ingrid Bergman dies of cancer on her 67th birthday. Bergman, who was best known for her role as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca, created an international scandal in 1950 when she had a son with the Italian …read more

1911

Ishi discovered in California

Ishi, who was described as the last surviving member of the Native Amercain Yahi tribe, is discovered in California on August 29, 1911. By the first decade of the 20th century, Euro-Americans had so overwhelmed the North American continent that scarcely any Native Americans …read more

Melinda

United States

United Kingdom

India

Canada

Australia

Ghana

Italy

France

Phillipines

Oman

South Africa

Germany

Kenya

Pakistan

Romania

Singapore

Netherlands

Sweden

Nigeria

Thank you so much for your support and well wishes. I also want to thank the other 96 countries for visiting and look forward to your return. I would love to reach all 195 countries in the world, just have few more to go.

Melinda

Welcome to the weekend edition of Today in History. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the post. Have an awesome weekend.

1950

On August 22, 1950, officials of the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) accept Althea Gibson into their annual championship at Forest Hills, New York, making her the first African American player to compete in a U.S. national tennis competition.

1851

U.S. wins first America’s Cup

On August 22, 1851, the U.S.-built schooner America bests a fleet of Britain’s finest ships in a race around England’s Isle of Wight. The ornate silver trophy won by the America was later donated to the New York Yacht Club on condition that it be forever placed in international …read more

1864

International Red Cross founded

The Geneva Convention of 1864 for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick of Armies in the Field is adopted by 12 nations meeting in Geneva. The agreement, advocated by Swiss humanitarian Jean-Henri Dunant, called for nonpartisan care to the sick and wounded in …read more

1965

Juan Marichal hits catcher with bat, instigating epic MLB brawl

At San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on August 22, 1965, Giants pitcher Juan Marichal steps up to the plate to lead off the home half of the third inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers. After the second pitch, a ball low and away, catcher John Roseboro returns the ball to pitcher …read more

1922

Michael Collins assassinated

Irish revolutionary and Sinn Fein politician Michael Collins is killed in an ambush in west County Cork, Ireland. In the early part of the century, Collins joined Sinn Fein, an Irish political party dedicated to achieving independence for all Ireland. From its inception, the …read more

Melinda

Welcome to the weekend edition of Today in History. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the post. Have an awesome weekend.

1969

On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock music festival opens on a patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel.

Promoters John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang originally envisioned the festival as a way to raise funds to build a recording studio and rock-and-roll retreat near the town of Woodstock, New York. The longtime artists’ colony was already a home base for Bob Dylan and other musicians. Despite their relative inexperience, the young promoters managed to sign a roster of top acts, including the Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many more. 

1979

Apocalypse Now, the acclaimed Vietnam War film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, opens in theaters around the United States on August 15, 1979. The film, inspired in part by Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness, among other sources, told the story of an Army captain …read more

1914

The American-built waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship. The rush of settlers to California and Oregon in the mid 19th century was the initial …read more

1961

Two days after sealing off free passage between East and West Berlin with barbed wire, East German authorities begin building a wall—the Berlin Wall—to permanently close off access to the West. For the next 28 years, the heavily fortified Berlin Wall stood as the most tangible …read more

1057

At the Battle of Lumphanan, King Macbeth of Scotland is slain by Malcolm Canmore, whose father, King Duncan I, was murdered by Macbeth 17 years earlier. Macbeth was a grandson of King Kenneth II and also had a claim to the throne through his wife, Gruoch, who was the …read more

Have a great day! 

Melinda