Saturday, August 20

This Day In History

• 1741   Alaska was discovered by Danish navigator Vitus Jonas Bering. That’s how the Bering Sea got its name.
  
• 1833   Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States, was born in North Bend, Ohio.
  
• 1866   The National Labor Union advocated an eight-hour workday. Industry, however, did not heed the request. Workers commonly worked 10 or 12 hour days -- or more.
  
• 1914   German forces occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I.
  
• 1918   Britain opened its offensive on the Western front during World War I.
  
• 1940   British Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid tribute to the Royal Air Force, saying, ''Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.''
  
• 1953   The Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
  
• 1955   Hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.
  
• 1964   President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a nearly $1 billion anti-poverty measure.
  
• 1977   The United States launched Voyager 2, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.
  
• 1992   The Republican national convention in Houston renominated President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle.
  
• 1998   Retaliating 13 days after the deadly embassy bombings in East Africa, the United States launched cruise missile strikes against al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan and what was described as a chemical plant in Sudan.
  
• 2000   Tiger Woods won the 82nd PGA Championship in Louisville, Kentucky. Woods birdied the last two holes in regulation and won the championship in a playoff over Bob May, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors (Masters, U.S. Open, British Open) in one year. He was the first player to win back-to-back PGA championships since Denny Shute in 1936 and 1937.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1833   Benjamin Harrison (23rd U.S. President [1889-1893]; married to C. Scott, M. Dimmick [one son, two daughter]; nickname: Kid Gloves Harrison; grandson of 9th U.S. President, William Henry Harrison; died Mar 13, 1901)
  
• 1918   Jacqueline Susann (author: The Valley of the Dolls, The Love Machine; died Sep 21, 1974)
  
• 1962   Geoffrey Blake (actor: The Last Starfighter)