TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – AUG 18
1587 In the Roanoke Island colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare become parents of a baby girl whom they name Virginia, the first English child born in what would become the United States.
1612 The Pendle witch trials begin 11 people – 9 women and 2 men – are tried for practicing witch craft in one of UK’s most well documented and followed witch trials.
1686 Cassini reports seeing a satellite orbiting Venus
1735 The “Evening Post” of Boston, MA, was published for the first time.
1894 Congress established the Bureau of Immigration, forerunner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
1898 Adolph Ochs takes over the New York Times, saying his aim is to give “the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is permissible in good society, and give it early, if not earlier, than it can be learned through any other medium.”
1914 Germany declares war on Russia while President Woodrow Wilson issues his Proclamation of Neutrality.
1936 “Cuando yo me muera, enterradme con mi guitarra”… Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca was shot and killed by Franco’s soldiers during the Spanish Civil War .
1958 Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, published
1965 Operation Starlite marks the beginning of major U.S. ground combat operations in Vietnam.
1971 Following protests in Australia and New Zealand over the Vietnam War both countries announce troop withdrawal by the end of the year leaving America isolated in it’s Vietnam Policy.
1987 Ohio nurse Donald Harvey sentenced to triple life terms for poisoning 24 patients.
1988 FDA approves Minoxidil as a hair loss treatment
1991 A group of hard-line communist leaders unhappy with the drift toward the collapse of the Soviet Union seize control of the government in Moscow and place President Mikhail S. Gorbachev under house arrest
1992 Dennis Rader, the BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) killer receives 10 consecutive life sentences. He had terrorized Wichita, Kansas, murdering 10 people between 1974 and 1991.
2004 Donald Trump unveiled his board game (TRUMP the Game) where players bid on real estate, buy big ticket items and make billion-dollar business deals.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
