TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: AUG 23
1244 Turks expel the crusaders under Frederick II from Jerusalem.
1305 Scottish patriot William Wallace is hanged, drawn, beheaded, and quartered in London.
1617 1st one-way streets established (London)
1775 King George III of England refuses the American colonies’ offer of peace and declares them in open rebellion.
1821 After 11 years of war, Spain grants Mexican independence as a constitutional monarchy.
1833 Britain abolishes slavery in colonies; 700,000 slaves freed
1839 Hong Kong was taken by the British in a war with China.
1902 Fanny Farmer, among the first to emphasize the relationship of diet to health, opens her School of Cookery in Boston.
1904 Snow Chains Patented
1917 Race riot in Houston Texas (2 blacks & 11 whites killed)
1927 Immigrant laborers Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for a robbery they did not commit. Fifty years later, in 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis establishes a memorial in the victims’ honor.
1939 Joseph Stalin and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sign a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany, freeing Adolf Hitler to invade Poland and Stalin to invade Finland.
1950 Up to 77,000 members of the U.S. Army Organized Reserve Corps are called involuntarily to active duty to fight the Korean War.
1966 Lunar Orbiter 1 takes first photograph of Earth from the moon
1982 The parliament of Lebanon elected Bashir Bemayel president. He was assassinated three weeks later.
1987 Robert Jarvik and Marilyn Mach vos Savant were married. The event was called the “Union of Great Minds” since Savant had an IQ of 228 and Jarvik was the inventor of the artificial heart.
1990 President Saddam Hussein appeared on Iraqi state television with a group of Western detainees that he referred to as “guests.” He told the group that they were being held “to prevent the scourge of war.”
1990 East and West Germany announce they will unite on Oct 3.
1996 Osama bin Laden issues message entitled “A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.”
1999 Robert Bogucki was rescued after getting lost in the Great Sandy Desert of Australia on July 11. During the 43 day ordeal Bogucki lost 44 pounds.
2011 Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi is overthrown after National Transitional Council forces take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during the 2011 Libyan Civil War.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
