The last total solar eclipse occurred on February 26, 1979.

      

This morning, the Moon’s shadow will be racing across the surface
of  the earth first touching land just north of Newport, Oregon at
about 10:15 a.m. PDT. After today, this type of event won’t happen
again until Oct. 14, 2023, according to the National Aeronautics and  
Space Administration (NASA).

Clay tablets found at ancient archaeological sites show that the Babylonians not only recorded eclipses—the earliest known
Babylonian record is of the eclipse that took place on May 3,
1375 BCE—but were also fairly accurate in predicting them. They
were the first people to use the Saros Cycle to predict eclipses.          
  
        
        
     
      
      
      
      
      
     

The hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev ended on
this day in 1991. The uprising that led to the collapse was led by Russian
federation President Boris Yeltsin.

Boris Yeltsin (left) and Mikhail Gorbachev.

It was on this day in 1940.

Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein)
(November 7, 1879 – August 21, 1940)

Nat Turner, a former slave, led a violent insurrection in Virginia on
this day in 1831. He was later executed.

Hawaii became the 50th state on this day in 1959. United States
President Eisenhower (seated/center) also issued the order for
the 50 star flag.

William James "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984)

Count Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and
composer who introduced several generations of listeners to the Big
Band sound and left an influential catalog.  

                     
                      Kenneth Ray Rogers is 79 years old today.

Kenny Rogers has sold more than 100 million albums over the course of his
career. His 1970s albums The Gambler and Kenny went 5x Platinum and 3x
Platinum, respectively. In 2013, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall
of Fame. He joined his first band,The Scholars, in the mid-1950s, but the band
dissolved after their frontman left to go solo.

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Camille Bohannon

U.S. military forces attacked a terrorist camp in Afghanistan and a chemical plant in Sudan. Both targets were chosen for cruise
missile strikes due to their connection with Osama bin Laden.

On this day in 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact
nations began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague
Spring" liberalization.

NASA’S Voyager 2 was launched by the United States on this day
in 1977. The spacecraft was carrying a 12 inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of
music and sounds of nature.

Isaac Lee Hayes Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008)

Singer and songwriter Isaac Hayes co-founded the soul music label
Stax Records alongside David Porter in the 1960s. He and Porter
wrote the popular 1967 song "Soul Man" for the duo Sam & Dave.

Hayes also earned recognition for his Academy Award-winning original
song "Theme from Shaft" for the 1971 film Shaft.

He began singing at his local church at age five and eventually taught
himself how to play the piano, organ, flute, and saxophone.

Robert Anthony Plant is 69 years old today.

Iconic rock star Robert Plant gained fame as the vocalist and songwriter
of the classic rock band Led Zeppelin, known for such hits as "Stairway
to Heaven" and "When the Levee Breaks." He was named the #1 Lead
Singer of All Time by Rolling Stone Magazine in 2011. He was once
in training to become an accountant before becoming involved in
the blues scene.

 
   
Drummer Ring Starr (above) first performed as a member of the Beatles at
a dance for the Horticultural Society at Port Sunlight, U.K. He said the
drums were not his.   

Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) turned 77 on July 7.

CAMILLE BOHANNON

The Mongol conqueror Ghengis Khan died on this day in 1227.

Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution 
on this day in 1920. The Amendment guaranteed the right of all
American women to vote.

On this day in 1963, James Meredith graduated from the University
of Mississippi. He was the first black man to accomplish this feat.

October 2015.

James Howard Meredith turned 84 in June.

Roberto Enrique Clemente Walker
(August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972)

Hall of Fame MLB outfielder Roberto Clemente played for the Pittsburgh
Pirates from 1955 to 1972. He was named National League MVP in 1966
and was a 2-time World Series Champion, winning World Series MVP
honors in 1971. He died tragically in a 1972 plane crash while flying to
Nicaragua to tend to earthquake victims. Clemente would deliver milk
cans in order to help make ends meet while growing up.

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Robert Redford in The Twilight Zone episode “Nothing in The Dark”
(1959).

Charles Robert Redford Jr. is 81 years old today.

Actor and director Robert Redford founded the Sundance Film Festival. He starred
in classic films such as All the President’s Men (1976), The Sting (1973), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) . His 1980 directorial debut, Ordinary People, received the Academy Award for Best Picture and earned him the Academy Award
for Best Director.