Lieutenant Commander John McCain (right) is welcomed by President Richard Nixon (left) upon McCain’s release from five and one-half- years as a P.O.W. during the Vietnam War in 1973.
John Sidney McCain III(August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018)
Among awards presented to John McCain: Silver Star, Bronze Star Medal (3) with Combat “V”, Purple Heart, Legion of Merit (2) Combat “V”, Distinguished Flying Cross, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal (2) with Combat “V” and others.
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty on this day in 1939.
It was on this day in 1927, despite worldwide demonstrations in support of their innocence, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for murder.
On April 15, 1920, a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, was shot and killed along with his guard.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
Former priest John Geoghan, a notorious pedophile whose case sparked the clergy molestation scandal for 18 months, died on this day in 2003 after being attacked at the state prison in Shirley.
It was on this day in 1926.
1921
Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi) (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law on this day in 1935. The act created unemployment insurance and pension plans for the elderly.
On this day in 1969, British troops arrived in Northern Ireland to intervene in sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
Lech Walesa
Stephen Glenn Martin is 73 years old today. Born in Waco, Texas.
While he has played banjo since an early age, and included music in his comedy routines from the beginning of his professional career, he has increasingly dedicated his career to music since the 2000s, acting less and spending much of his professional life playing banjo, recording, and touring with various bluegrass acts, including Earl Scruggs.
Last U.S. combat troops leave Vietnam on this day in 1972.
It was on this day in 1944 during World War 11.
Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. perished in one of the first American fatalities associated with a pilotless aircraft, which we usually know today as a drone or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The older brother of future president, John F. Kennedy, was taking part in an extraordinary secret war being waged across the English Channel with new generations of exotic weapons.
Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr.(July 25, 1915 – August 12, 1944)
New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey resigned on this day in 2004, declaring he’s gay.
James Edward McGreevey turned 61 on August 6th.
The Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sank and its 118-man crew died during naval exercises in the Barents Sea on this day in 2000.
Following salvage operations, analysts concluded that 23 sailors in the sixth through ninth compartments had survived the two explosions. They took refuge in the small ninth compartment and survived more than six hours. When the oxygen ran low, crew members attempted to replace a volatile potassium superoxidechemical oxygen cartridge when it contacted oily sea water that had seeped into the compartment. A resulting explosion killed several crew members and triggered a flash fire that consumed the remaining oxygen, suffocating the remaining survivors.
Russian President Vladimir Putin lays flowers at the monument to the sailors who died in the Kursk disaster.
On this day in 1964, the U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which gave President Johnson broad powers in dealing with reported North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces.
U.S. forces landed at Guadalcanal on this day in 1942, marking the start of the first major allied offensive in the Pacific during World War II.
U.S. Marines rest in the field during the Guadalcanal campaign.
On this day in 1947, the balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki, which had carried a six-man crew (below) 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean,crashed into a reef in a Polynesian archipelago.
On this day in 2007, at the Giants home AT&T Park in San Francisco, Berry Bonds hit a 435 foot (133 m) home run, his 756th, off a pitch from Mike Bacsik of the Washington Nationals, breaking the all- time career home run record, formerly held by Hank Aaron. Bonds, was indicted later that year on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying under oath to a federal grand jury looking into steroid use among pro athletes.
