August 19
1812 - The U.S. frigate Constitution (Old Ironsides) defeated the British ship Guerriere during the War of 1812.
1814 - During the War of 1812, British forces landed at Benedict, Maryland, with the objective of capturing Washington D.C.
1848 - The New York Herald reported the discovery of gold in California.
1934 - Germans voted to combine the roles of chancellor and president, making Adolf Hitler Fuhrer.
1942 - During World War II, about 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a disastrous raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France, suffering more than 50-percent casualties.
1955 - Torrential rains caused by Hurricane Diane resulted in severe flooding in the northeastern U.S., claiming some 200 lives.
1960 - American U-2 pilot Gary Francis Powers was convicted of espionage in Moscow. (Although sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, Powers was returned to the United States in 1962 as part of a prisoner exchange.)
1974 - U.S. Ambassador Rodger P. Davies was fatally wounded by a bullet that penetrated the American embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus, during a protest by Greek Cypriots.
1976 - President Gerald R. Ford won the Republican presidential nomination at the party's national convention in Kansas City.
1977 - Comedian Groucho Marx died in Los Angeles at age 86.
1980 - 301 people aboard a Saudi Arabian L-1011 died as the jetliner made a fiery emergency return to the Riyadh airport.
1991 - Rioting erupted in the Brooklyn, New York, Crown Heights neighborhood after a Black 7-year-old, Gavin Cato, was struck and killed by a Jewish driver from the ultra-Orthodox Lubavitch community; three hours later, a mob of Black youth fatally stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum, a rabbinical student.
1994 - President Bill Clinton halted the nation's three-decade open-door policy for Cuban refugees.
1996 - A judge sentenced former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker to four years' probation for his Whitewater crimes.
2003 - U.N. special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello was one of 22 killed when a suicide car bomb struck the U.N.'s Baghdad headquarters.
2004 - The Internet search engine Google went public.
2005 - A Texas jury found pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. liable for the death of a man who'd taken the once-popular painkiller Vioxx.
2010 - The last American combat brigade exited Iraq, seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion began.
2011 - Three men — Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley — who’d spent nearly two decades in prison for the nightmarish slayings of three Cub Scouts in Arkansas, went free after they agreed to a legal maneuver allowing them to maintain their innocence while acknowledging prosecutors had enough evidence against them.
2016 - The Obama administration defended its decision to make a $400 million cash delivery to Iran contingent on the release of American prisoners, saying the payment wasn’t ransom because the Islamic Republic would have soon recouped the money one way or another.
2020 - Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president in a speech to the party’s virtual convention, cementing her place in history as the first Black woman on a major party ticket.
2020 - Another night of protests in Portland, Oregon ended in clashes with police; officials said protesters broke out the windows of a county government building, sprayed lighter fluid inside and set a fire.
2020 - Apple became the first U.S. company to boast a market value of $2 trillion, just two years after becoming the first U.S. company with a $1 trillion market value.
Birthdays
22 - Ethan Cutkosky (actor)
36 - J. Evan Bonifant (actor)
37 - Simon Bird (actor)
38 - Peter Mooney (actor)
38 - Missy Higgins (singer)
38 - Tammin Sursok (actress)
39 - Melissa Fumero (actress)
39 - Erika Christensen (actress)
40 - Rissi Palmer (country singer)
46 - Tracie Thoms (actress)
50 - Mary Joe Fernandez (tennis player)
51 - Fat Joe (rapper)
52 - Clay Walker (country singer)
52 - Matthew Perry (actor)
55 - Lee Ann Womack (country singer)
56 - Kevin Dillon (actor)
56 - Kyra Sedgwick (actress)
58 - John Stamos (actor)
59 - Eric Lutes (actor)
63 - Anthony Munoz (football player)
64 - Martin Donovan (actor)
64 - Gary Chapman (singer)
65 - Adam Arkin (actor)
66 - Peter Gallagher (actor)
69 - Jonathan Frakes (actor)
73 - Jim Carter (actor)
74 - Gerald McRaney (actor)
75 - Bill Clinton (42nd president of the United States)
78 - Billy J. Kramer (singer)
81 - Jill St. John (actress)
83 - Diana Muldaur (actress)
86 - Bobby Richardson (baseball player)
87 - Renee Richards (tennis player)
88 - Debra Paget (actress)
94 - L.Q. Jones (actor)
============================================
Today in Sports History - August 19
1909 - The first automobile races were run at the just-opened Indianapolis Motor Speedway; the winner of the first event was auto engineer Louis Schwitzer, who drove a Stoddard-Dayton touring car twice around the 2.5-mile track at an average speed of 57.4 mph.
1917 - Team managers John McGraw and Christy Matthewson were arrested for breaking New York City's blue laws. The crime was their teams were playing baseball on Sunday.
1921 - Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers recorded his 3,000th career hit, the fourth player to achieve the feat.
1951 - The St. Louis Browns sent a midget to the plate against the Detroit Tigers. Eddie Gaedel, wearing the number 1/8 and standing only 3 feet, 7 inches tall, walked on four consecutive pitches and was then replaced by a pinch-runner.
1957 - The New York Giants Board of Directors voted to move the team to San Francisco in 1958.
1962 - Homero Blancas shot a 55 at the Premier Invitational Golf Tournament held in Longview, Texas. It was the lowest score in U.S. competitive golf history.
1995 - Bobby Thigpen (Chicago White Sox) got his 40th save of season and became the eighth and fastest to record 40 saves in a season.
1995 - Returning to the ring for the first time after a three-year prison sentence, Mike Tyson knocked out Peter McNeeley after just 89 seconds.
1996 - Paul Molitor (Minnesota Twins) tied Lou Gherig by hitting his 534th career double.
2002 - John Madden debuted on the broadcast team of "Monday Night Football."
2004 - Baseball commissioner Bud Selig received a contract extension through 2009.
2004 - American gymnast Carly Patterson becomes the second American woman to win the all-around gymnastics gold medal and first to win one in a non-boycotted Olympic Games.
2010 - A federal grand jury indicted retired baseball player Roger Clemens for allegedly lying to Congress about steroid use. (Clemens' trial this year ended in a mistrial.)
2016 - Usain Bolt scored another sweep at the Rio Games, winning three gold medals in his third consecutive Olympics by turning a close 4x100 relay race against Japan and the United States into a runaway, helping Jamaica cross the line in 37.27 seconds. Allyson Felix won an unprecedented fifth gold medal in women’s track and field, running the second leg of the 4x100-meter relay team.
1812 - The U.S. frigate Constitution (Old Ironsides) defeated the British ship Guerriere during the War of 1812.
1814 - During the War of 1812, British forces landed at Benedict, Maryland, with the objective of capturing Washington D.C.
1848 - The New York Herald reported the discovery of gold in California.
1934 - Germans voted to combine the roles of chancellor and president, making Adolf Hitler Fuhrer.
1942 - During World War II, about 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a disastrous raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France, suffering more than 50-percent casualties.
1955 - Torrential rains caused by Hurricane Diane resulted in severe flooding in the northeastern U.S., claiming some 200 lives.
1960 - American U-2 pilot Gary Francis Powers was convicted of espionage in Moscow. (Although sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, Powers was returned to the United States in 1962 as part of a prisoner exchange.)
1974 - U.S. Ambassador Rodger P. Davies was fatally wounded by a bullet that penetrated the American embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus, during a protest by Greek Cypriots.
1976 - President Gerald R. Ford won the Republican presidential nomination at the party's national convention in Kansas City.
1977 - Comedian Groucho Marx died in Los Angeles at age 86.
1980 - 301 people aboard a Saudi Arabian L-1011 died as the jetliner made a fiery emergency return to the Riyadh airport.
1991 - Rioting erupted in the Brooklyn, New York, Crown Heights neighborhood after a Black 7-year-old, Gavin Cato, was struck and killed by a Jewish driver from the ultra-Orthodox Lubavitch community; three hours later, a mob of Black youth fatally stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum, a rabbinical student.
1994 - President Bill Clinton halted the nation's three-decade open-door policy for Cuban refugees.
1996 - A judge sentenced former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker to four years' probation for his Whitewater crimes.
2003 - U.N. special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello was one of 22 killed when a suicide car bomb struck the U.N.'s Baghdad headquarters.
2004 - The Internet search engine Google went public.
2005 - A Texas jury found pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. liable for the death of a man who'd taken the once-popular painkiller Vioxx.
2010 - The last American combat brigade exited Iraq, seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion began.
2011 - Three men — Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley — who’d spent nearly two decades in prison for the nightmarish slayings of three Cub Scouts in Arkansas, went free after they agreed to a legal maneuver allowing them to maintain their innocence while acknowledging prosecutors had enough evidence against them.
2016 - The Obama administration defended its decision to make a $400 million cash delivery to Iran contingent on the release of American prisoners, saying the payment wasn’t ransom because the Islamic Republic would have soon recouped the money one way or another.
2020 - Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president in a speech to the party’s virtual convention, cementing her place in history as the first Black woman on a major party ticket.
2020 - Another night of protests in Portland, Oregon ended in clashes with police; officials said protesters broke out the windows of a county government building, sprayed lighter fluid inside and set a fire.
2020 - Apple became the first U.S. company to boast a market value of $2 trillion, just two years after becoming the first U.S. company with a $1 trillion market value.
Birthdays
22 - Ethan Cutkosky (actor)
36 - J. Evan Bonifant (actor)
37 - Simon Bird (actor)
38 - Peter Mooney (actor)
38 - Missy Higgins (singer)
38 - Tammin Sursok (actress)
39 - Melissa Fumero (actress)
39 - Erika Christensen (actress)
40 - Rissi Palmer (country singer)
46 - Tracie Thoms (actress)
50 - Mary Joe Fernandez (tennis player)
51 - Fat Joe (rapper)
52 - Clay Walker (country singer)
52 - Matthew Perry (actor)
55 - Lee Ann Womack (country singer)
56 - Kevin Dillon (actor)
56 - Kyra Sedgwick (actress)
58 - John Stamos (actor)
59 - Eric Lutes (actor)
63 - Anthony Munoz (football player)
64 - Martin Donovan (actor)
64 - Gary Chapman (singer)
65 - Adam Arkin (actor)
66 - Peter Gallagher (actor)
69 - Jonathan Frakes (actor)
73 - Jim Carter (actor)
74 - Gerald McRaney (actor)
75 - Bill Clinton (42nd president of the United States)
78 - Billy J. Kramer (singer)
81 - Jill St. John (actress)
83 - Diana Muldaur (actress)
86 - Bobby Richardson (baseball player)
87 - Renee Richards (tennis player)
88 - Debra Paget (actress)
94 - L.Q. Jones (actor)
============================================
Today in Sports History - August 19
1909 - The first automobile races were run at the just-opened Indianapolis Motor Speedway; the winner of the first event was auto engineer Louis Schwitzer, who drove a Stoddard-Dayton touring car twice around the 2.5-mile track at an average speed of 57.4 mph.
1917 - Team managers John McGraw and Christy Matthewson were arrested for breaking New York City's blue laws. The crime was their teams were playing baseball on Sunday.
1921 - Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers recorded his 3,000th career hit, the fourth player to achieve the feat.
1951 - The St. Louis Browns sent a midget to the plate against the Detroit Tigers. Eddie Gaedel, wearing the number 1/8 and standing only 3 feet, 7 inches tall, walked on four consecutive pitches and was then replaced by a pinch-runner.
1957 - The New York Giants Board of Directors voted to move the team to San Francisco in 1958.
1962 - Homero Blancas shot a 55 at the Premier Invitational Golf Tournament held in Longview, Texas. It was the lowest score in U.S. competitive golf history.
1995 - Bobby Thigpen (Chicago White Sox) got his 40th save of season and became the eighth and fastest to record 40 saves in a season.
1995 - Returning to the ring for the first time after a three-year prison sentence, Mike Tyson knocked out Peter McNeeley after just 89 seconds.
1996 - Paul Molitor (Minnesota Twins) tied Lou Gherig by hitting his 534th career double.
2002 - John Madden debuted on the broadcast team of "Monday Night Football."
2004 - Baseball commissioner Bud Selig received a contract extension through 2009.
2004 - American gymnast Carly Patterson becomes the second American woman to win the all-around gymnastics gold medal and first to win one in a non-boycotted Olympic Games.
2010 - A federal grand jury indicted retired baseball player Roger Clemens for allegedly lying to Congress about steroid use. (Clemens' trial this year ended in a mistrial.)
2016 - Usain Bolt scored another sweep at the Rio Games, winning three gold medals in his third consecutive Olympics by turning a close 4x100 relay race against Japan and the United States into a runaway, helping Jamaica cross the line in 37.27 seconds. Allyson Felix won an unprecedented fifth gold medal in women’s track and field, running the second leg of the 4x100-meter relay team.
