Sunday, August 28

This Day In History

• 1749   German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in Frankfurt.
  
• 1774   Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint, was born in New York City.
  
• 1811   Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley eloped with Harriet Westbrook.
  
• 1828   Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy was born near Tula.
  
• 1916   Italy's declaration of war against Germany took effect during World War I.
  
• 1917   Ten suffragists were arrested as they picketed the White House.
  
• 1922   The first radio commercial aired on WEAF in New York City. It was a 10-minute advertisement for the Queensboro Realty Co., which had paid $100.
  
• 1947   Legendary bullfighter Manolete was mortally wounded by a bull during a fight in Linares, Spain; he died the following day.
  
• 1955   Emmett Till, a black teen-ager from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle's home in Money, Miss., by two white men after he was accused of whistling at a white woman. He was found murdered three days later.
  
• 1963   Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Some 250,000 people witnessed one of the most stirring speeches of the century.
  
• 1968   Police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey for president.
  
• 1981   John W. Hinckley Jr. pleaded innocent to charges of attempting to kill President Ronald Reagan.
  
• 1988   Three Italian stunt planes collided during an air show at the U.S. Air Base in Ramstein, West Germany, sending flaming debris into a crowd of spectators and killing 70 people.
  
• 1996   Democrats nominated President Bill Clinton for a second term at their national convention in Chicago.
  
• 1996   A divorce decree ending the 15-year marriage of Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana was issued.
  
• 2002   Prosecutors indicted WorldCom executives Scott Sulivan and Buford Yates Jr. in connection with the company's collapse.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1749   Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (writer: Faust; died Mar 22, 1832)
  
• 1831   Lucy (Ware Webb) Hayes (first lady: wife of 19th U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes; died June 25, 1889)
  
• 1897   Charles Boyer (actor)
  
• 1921   Nancy Kulp (actress: The Beverly Hillbillies)
  
• 1925   Donald (David Dixon) O’Connor (actor, dancer)
  
• 1930   Ben (Biagio Anthony) Gazzara (actor)