Thursday, August 11

This Day In History

• 1909   The SOS distress signal was first used by an American ship, the Arapahoe, off Cape Hatteras, N.C.
  
• 1924   The first newsreel pictures of U.S. presidential candidates were taken -- in Washington, DC.
  
• 1934   The first federal prisoners arrived at the island prison Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay.
  
• 1954   A formal peace took hold in Indochina, ending more than seven years of fighting between the French and the Communist Vietminh.
  
• 1956   Abstract artist Jackson Pollock died in an automobile accident in East Hampton, N.Y., at age 44.
  
• 1984   President Ronald Reagan joked during a voice test for a paid political radio address that he had ''signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.''
  
• 1992   The Mall of America, the biggest shopping mall in the country, opened in Bloomington, Minn.
  
• 1993   President Bill Clinton named Army Gen. John Shalikashvili as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, succeeding Gen. Colin Powell.
  
• 1994   A federal jury awarded $286.8 million to some 10,000 commercial fishermen for losses as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
  
• 1997   President Bill Clinton made the first use of the line-item veto approved by Congress, rejecting three items in spending and tax bills.
  
• 1998   British Petroleum purchased Amoco for $49 billion in the biggest foreign takeover of a U.S. company.
  
• 2000   Pat Buchanan won the Reform Party presidential nomination in a victory bitterly disputed by party founder Ross Perot's supporters, who chose their own nominee, John Hagelin, in a rival convention.
  
• 2002   US Airways filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
  
• 2003   NATO took command of the 5,000-strong peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.
  
• 2003   Charles Taylor resigned as Liberia's president and went into exile in Nigeria.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1921   Alex Haley (Pulitzer Prize-winning author: Roots [1977]; The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Queen; died Feb 10, 1992)
  
• 1925   Mike Douglas (Dowd) (TV host: The Mike Douglas Show; singer)
  
• 1933   Jerry Falwell (leader of religious right: Moral Majority head, preacher)
  
• 1950   Steve Wozniak (founder: Apple Computer, Inc [1976: w/Steve Jobs])
  
• 1953   Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea) (wrestler, actor: Mr. Nanny, Suburban Commando, Thunder in Paradise)