TODAY IN HISTORY

On This Day in History Saturday, August 14th
The 226th day of 2010.
There are 139 days left in the year.
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Today’s Highlights in History   
NYT Front Page
See a larger version of this front page.
  On Aug. 14, 1945, President Truman announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II. (Go to article.)
On Aug. 14, 1886, Arthur J. Dempster, the American physicist who built the first device for measuring charged particles, was born. Following his death on March 11, 1950, his obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)
Editorial Cartoon of the Day   On August 14, 1897, Harper’s Weekly featured a cartoon about patent medicines and professional pharmacists. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)

On this date in:
1848 The Oregon Territory was established.
1900 International forces entered Beijing to put down the Boxer Rebellion, which was aimed at purging China of foreigners.
1917 China declared war on Germany and Austria during World War I.
1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, creating unemployment insurance and pension plans for the elderly.
1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter, a statement of principles that renounced aggression.
1945 President Harry S. Truman announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II.
1947 Pakistan became independent of British rule.
1969 British troops arrived in Northern Ireland to intervene in sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
1973 U.S. bombing of Cambodia came to a halt.
1980 Workers went on strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland – a job action that resulted in the creation of the Solidarity labor movement.
1980 President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale were nominated for a second term at the Democratic National Convention in New York.
1996 The Republican National Convention in San Diego nominated Bob Dole for president and Jack Kemp for vice president.
1997 An unrepentant Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing.
2003 A blackout hit the northeastern United States and part of Canada; 50 million people lost power.
2006 Israel halted its offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas as a U.N.-imposed cease-fire went into effect after a month of warfare that killed more than 900 people.
2009 Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a Charles Manson follower who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975, was released from a Texas prison hospital after more than three decades behind bars.

Current Birthdays
Halle Berry turns 44 years old today.

AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill Actress Halle Berry turns 44 years old today.
 
 
85 Russell Baker
Newspaper columnist
80 Earl Weaver
Baseball Hall of Famer
72 Dash Crofts
Singer (Seals and Crofts)
69 David Crosby
Rock singer, musician (Crosby, Stills and Nash)
65 Steve Martin
Actor, comedian
64 Susan Saint James
Actress (“Kate and Allie,” “McMillan and Wife”)
63 Danielle Steel
Author
60 Gary Larson
Cartoonist (“Far Side”)
51 Marcia Gay Harden
Actress
51 Magic Johnson
Basketball Hall of Famer
50 Sarah Brightman
Singer
49 Susan Olsen
Actress (“The Brady Bunch”)
42 Catherine Bell
Actress (“Army Wives,” “JAG”)
35 Mike Vrabel
Football player
27 Mila Kunis
Actress (“That 70’s Show”)
Historic Birthdays
Arthur J. Dempster

8/14/1886 – 3/11/1950
American physicist, inventor of the first mass spectrometer
(Go to obit.)
 
70 Paolo Sarpi
8/14/1552 – 1/14/1623
Venetian patriot and scholar
81 Cosimo III
8/14/1642 – 10/31/1723
Italian – 6th duke of Tuscany
36 Letitia Landon
8/14/1802 – 10/15/1838
English poet and novelist
86 Ernest Thompson Seton
8/14/1860 – 10/23/1946
British/Canadian naturalist and writer; helped found the Boy Scouts of America
77 Ernest Thayer
8/14/1863 – 8/21/1940
American writer; wrote “Casey at the Bat”
65 John Galsworthy
8/14/1867 – 1/31/1933
English Nobel Prize-winning novelist and playwright (1932)
86 Daniel Jackling
8/14/1869 – 3/13/1956
American mining engineer and metallurgist
79 Eduardo Mallea
8/14/1903 – 11/12/1982
Argentine novelist, essayist and short-story writer
85 Pierre Schaeffer
8/14/1910 – 8/19/1995
French composer, acoustician and electronics engineer
77 Max Klein
8/14/1915 – 5/20/1993
American painter; invented “paint by numbers”

 


SOURCE: The Associated Press

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