On August 14, 2003, a major outage knocked out power across
the eastern United States and parts of Canada. Beginning at
4:10 p.m. ET, 21 power plants shut down in just three minutes.

Fifty million people were affected, including residents of New
York, Cleveland and Detroit, as well as Toronto and Ottawa,
Canada.

Although power companies were able to resume some service
in as little as two hours, power remained off in other places for
more than a day.

The outage stopped trains and elevators, and disrupted everything
from cellular telephone service to operations at hospitals to traffic
at airports. In New York City, it took more than two hours for
passengers to be evacuated from stalled subway trains.

In New York City alone, the estimated cost of the blackout was
more than $500 million.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Social
Security Act on August 14, 1935.

Press photographers snapped pictures as FDR, flanked by
ranking members of Congress, signed into law the historic
act, which guaranteed an income for the unemployed and
retirees in the wake of the Great Depression.

In what later became known as Victory Day, an official
announcement of Japan’s unconditional surrender to
the Allies was made public to the world on August 14,
1945. (Because of time-zone differences, it was August
15 in Japan.)

Japan formally surrendered in writing two weeks later,
on September 2, 1945.

American servicemen and women in Paris celebrate V-J Day.

Former New York Yankees star Mickey Mantle died of liver
cancer at the age of 63. While he patrolled center field and
batted clean-up between 1951 and 1968, the Yankees won
12 American League pennants and seven World Series
championships.

Shortly after midnight on August 13, 1961, East German soldiers
began laying down barbed wire and bricks as a barrier between
Soviet-controlled East Berlin and the democratic western section
of the city.