What Happened Whensday: August 6, 2008

This is the 218th day of the year (219th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 147 days remaining until the end of the year.

1538 - Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada.

1787 - Sixty proof sheets of the Constitution of the United States are delivered to the Constitutional Convention.

1806 - Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates, thus ending the Holy Roman Empire.

1819 - Norwich University founded in Vermont as the first private military school in the United States.

1825 - Bolivia gains independence from Spain.

1845 - Russian Geographical Society is founded in Saint Petersburg.

1861 - British annexation of Lagos, Nigeria.

1862 - American Civil War: The Confederate ironclad CSS Arkansas is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering damage in a battle with USS Essex near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

1870 - Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Wœrth is fought, resulting in a decisive Prussian victory.

1890 - At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.

1901 - Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement, effectively dissolving the contiguous reservation.

1909 - Alice Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip.

1912 - The Bull Moose Party meets at the Chicago Coliseum.

1914 - World War I: First Battle of the Atlantic - Two days after the United Kingdom declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea.
1914 - World War I: Serbia declares war on Germany; Austria declares war on Russia.
1914 - Denis Patrick Dowd Jr. enlists in the French Foreign Legion, becoming the first American to fight in World War I.

1915 - World War I: Battle of Sari Bair - The Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay.

1917 - World War I: The Battle of Marasesti between the Romanian and German armies begins.

1923 - Henry Sullivan swims the English Channel.

1926 - Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to swim across the English Channel.

1942 - Queen Wilhelmina is the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress.

1945 - World War II: Hiroshima is devastated when an atomic bomb, "Little Boy", is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people were killed instantly, and some tens of thousands died in subsequent years due to burns and radiation poisoning.

1956 - After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network has its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena.

1960 - Cuban Revolution: In response to a United States embargo, Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.

1961 - Cosmonaut Gherman Titov makes the second successful manned orbital flight for the USSR.

1962 - Jamaica becomes independent.

1964 - Prometheus, the world's oldest tree, is cut down.

1965 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into United States law.

1966 - Braniff Airlines Flight 250 crashes in Falls City, NE killing all 42 on board.

1976 - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto lays foundation-stone of Port Qasim, Karachi.

1986 - A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 millimeters (13 inches) of rain in a day on Sydney.

1990 - Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

1991 - Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.
1991 - Doi Takako, chair of the Social Democratic Party (Japan), becomes Japan's first female speaker of the House of Representatives.

1993 - According to Japanese government and Tokyo Broadcasting System networks report, heavy massive rain and debris blow occurred at widely Kagoshima and Aira area, Kyushu, Japan, killing 72.

1996 - NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms.

1997 - Korean Air Flight 801, a Boeing 747-300, crashes into the jungle on Guam on approach to airport, killing 228.

2000 - The Roman Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under Prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, publishes Dominus Iesus, notable for its lack of the filioque clause in the Latin text of the Nicene Creed.

2001 - White House briefing entitled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. delivered to George W. Bush. This document foreshadowed the September 11, 2001 attacks.


Sports:

1958 - Sports: Australian runner Herb Elliot broke the world record for the mile at the Morton Stadium in Dublin, in a time of 3:54.5.

1983 - Football: Minnesota Vikings beat the St. Louis Cardinals 28-10 in London, England (Exhibition)

2001 - ProWrestling: Tajiri defeated X-Pac for the WWE Light Heavyweight Champioship in Anaheim, CA on Raw is War.

Other Entertainment:

1926 - In New York, the Warner Brothers' Vitaphone system premieres with the movie Don Juan starring John Barrymore.
1926 - Harry Houdini performs his greatest feat, spending 91 minutes underwater in a sealed tank before escaping.

1973 - Stevie Wonder was in a serious automobile accident while on tour, when a log from a truck went through a passenger window and struck him in the head. This left him in a coma for four days and resulted in a permanent loss of his sense of smell.

1982 - Sting releases 'Spread a Little Happiness', his first solo single (it peaks at No. 16)


Notable Births:

1697 - Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1745)
1861 - Edith Roosevelt, American First Lady of the United States (d. 1948)
1911 - Lucille Ball, American actress (d. 1989)
1928 - Andy Warhol, American artist (d. 1987)
1941 - Ray Culp, American baseball player
1949 - Dino Bravo, Canadian professional wrestler (d. 1993)
1950 - Dorian Harewood, American actor
1952 - Vinnie Vincent, American musician (ex-Kiss)
1957 - Jim McGreevey, American politician
1962 - Michelle Yeoh, Chinese-Malaysian actress
1965 - David Robinson, American basketball player
1970 - M. Night Shyamalan, Indian-born American film director
1972 - Geri Halliwell, British singer (Spice Girls)
1975 - Victor Zambrano, Venezuelan baseball player
1977 - Jennifer Lyons, American actress
1982 - Justin Germano, American Major League Baseball Player
1990 - Jon Benet Ramsey, Murdered child model (d. 1996)


Notable Deaths

258 - Saint Pope Sixtus II
523 - Saint Pope Hormisdas
1458 - Pope Callixtus III (b. 1378)
1623 - Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife) (b. 1556)
1866 - John Mason Neale, English divine, scholar and hymnwriter (b. 1818)
1881 - James White, co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (b. 1821)
1914 - Ellen Louise Wilson, first wife of President Woodrow Wilson (b. 1860)
1973 - Memphis Minnie, American blues singer (b. 1897)
1978 - Pope Paul VI (b. 1897)
2001 - Wilhelm Mohnke, one of the original 120 members of the Nazi SS-Staff Guard (b. 1911)
2002 - Edsger Dijkstra, Dutch computer scientist (b. 1930)
2004 - Rick James, American musician (b. 1948)
2007 - Heinz Barth, German convicted war criminal (SS) (b. 1920)