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Thread: This Day in History |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
On Aug 9:
1936 - African-American track star Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal of the Olympic Games in Berlin. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
August 10 1821:
Missouri enters the Union as the 24th state--and the first located entirely west of the Mississippi River. Named for one of the Native American groups that once lived in the territory, Missouri became a U.S. possession as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In 1817, Missouri Territory applied for statehood, but the question of whether it would be slave or free delayed approval by Congress. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise was reached, admitting Missouri as a slave state but excluding slavery from the other Louisiana Purchase lands north of Missouri's southern border. Missouri's August 1821 entrance into the Union as a slave state was met with disapproval by many of its citizens. In 1861, when other slave states succeeded from the Union, Missouri chose to remain; although a provincial government was established in the next year by Confederate sympathizers. During the war, Missourians were split in their allegiances, supplying both Union and Confederate forces with troops. Lawlessness persisted during this period, and Missouri-born Confederate guerrillas such as Jesse James continued this lawlessness after the South's defeat. With the ratification of Missouri's new constitution by the citizens of the state in 1875, the old divisions were finally put to rest. |
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Former Member
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10th August 1945 : Japan accepts Potsdam terms, agrees to unconditional surrender
On this day in 1945, just a day after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan submits its acquiescence to the Potsdam Conference terms of unconditional surrender, as President Harry S. Truman orders a halt to atomic bombing. Emperor Hirohito, having remained aloof from the daily decisions of prosecuting the war, rubber-stamping the decisions of his War Council, including the decision to bomb Pearl Harbor, finally felt compelled to do more. At the behest of two Cabinet members, the emperor summoned and presided over a special meeting of the Council and implored them to consider accepting the terms of the Potsdam Conference, which meant unconditional surrender. "It seems obvious that the nation is no longer able to wage war, and its ability to defend its own shores is doubtful." The Council had been split over the surrender terms; half the members wanted assurances that the emperor would maintain his hereditary and traditional role in a postwar Japan before surrender could be considered. But in light of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, Nagasaki on August 9, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, as well as the emperor's own request that the Council "bear the unbearable," it was agreed: Japan would surrender. Tokyo released a message to its ambassadors in Switzerland and Sweden, which was then passed on to the Allies. The message formally accepted the Potsdam Declaration but included the proviso that "said Declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as sovereign ruler." When the message reached Washington, President Truman, unwilling to inflict any more suffering on the Japanese people, especially on "all those kids," ordered a halt to atomic bombing, He also wanted to know whether the stipulation regarding "His Majesty" was a deal breaker. Negotiations between Washington and Tokyo ensued. Meanwhile, savage fighting continued between Japan and the Soviet Union in Manchuria. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
On Aug 10:
1846 - Congress chartered the Smithsonian Institution, named after English scientist James Smithson, whose bequest had made it possible. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
August 11 1972:
The last U.S. ground combat unit in South Vietnam, the Third Battalion, Twenty-First Infantry, departs for the United States. The unit had been guarding the U.S. air base at Da Nang. This left only 43,500 advisors, airmen, and support troops left in-country. This number did not include the sailors of the Seventh Fleet on station in the South China Sea or the air force personnel in Thailand and Guam. |
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Former Member
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August 12 1994:
The much-publicized Woodstock II music festival takes place in Saugerties, New York, near the site of the legendary Woodstock concert of 1969. An estimated 300,000 people attended the event, marked--as was the original--by bad weather and pervasive mud. Some 50 bands and singers performed, including the Neville Brothers, Nine Inch Nails, Bob Dylan, Green Day, Jimmy Cliff, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. |
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Former Member
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August 12, 2000:
The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy exploded and sank in the Barents Sea during a military exercise. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
On Aug 13:
1961 - Berlin was divided with barbed wire as East Germany sealed off the border between the city's eastern and western sectors in order to halt the flight of refugees. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
August 14 1935:
Mrs. M.S. Morrow of Whitestone, New York, had the last U.S.-built Rolls-Royce Phantom I delivered to her home on this day. Manufactured at the Rolls-Royce plant in Springfield, Massachusetts, the U.S.-built Phantom I made its debut one year after its British counterpart. It featured elegant proportions and well-engineered coachwork, suitable for the successor of the Silver Ghost--the model that earned Rolls-Royce a reputation as "the best car in the world." A total of 1,241 Phantoms were produced. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
August 14, 1980:
Lech Wałęsa leads strikes at Gdańsk, Poland shipyards. |
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