Thursday, August 18

This Day In History

• 1227   The Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan died.
  
• 1587   Virginia Dare became the first child of English parents to be born on American soil, on what is now Roanoke Island, N.C.
  
• 1846   U.S. forces led by Gen. Stephen W. Kearney captured Santa Fe, N.M.
  
• 1894   Congress established the Bureau of Immigration.
  
• 1914   President Woodrow Wilson issued his Proclamation of Neutrality, aimed at keeping the United States out of World War I.
  
• 1920   Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed the right of women to vote.
  
• 1954   Assistant Secretary of Labor James E. Wilkins became the first black to attend a meeting of a president's Cabinet as he sat in for Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell.
  
• 1958   The novel ''Lolita'' by Vladimir Nabokov was published.
  
• 1983   Hurricane Alicia slammed into the Texas coast, leaving 22 dead and causing more than $1 billion damage.
  
• 1988   Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle was nominated as George H.W. Bush's running mate during the Republican convention in New Orleans.
  
• 1989   In Colombia, leading presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galan was assassinated outside Bogota.
  
• 1991   Soviet hard-liners launched a coup aimed at toppling President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who was vacationing in the Crimea.
  
• 1997   Beth Ann Hogan became the first coed in the Virginia Military Institute's 158-year history.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1774   Meriwether Lewis (explorer: team: Lewis and Clark; died of gunshot wounds Oct 11, 1809)
  
• 1904   Max Factor Jr. (cosmetic mogul; died June 7, 1996)
  
• 1917   Caspar W. Weinberger (15th U.S. Secretary of Defense [1981-1987]; chairman: Forbes magazine; (co)author: The Next War)
  
• 1922   Shelley Winters (Schrift) (Academy Award-winning actress)
  
• 1927   Rosalynn Carter (Smith) (First Lady: wife of 39th U.S. President Jimmy Carter)
  
• 1933   Roman Polanski (director: Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, MacBeth)
  
• 1937   Robert Redford (actor)
  
• 1943   Martin Mull (comedian, actor)
  
• 1952   Elayne Boosler (comedienne, actress)
  
• 1952   Patrick Swayze (dancer, actor: Dirty Dancing, Ghost)