On August 19, 1909, the first race was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, now the home of the world’s most famous motor racing competition, the Indianapolis 500.

Built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana, the speedway was started by local businessmen as a
testing facility for Indiana’s growing automobile industry.

In that first five-mile race, 12,000 spectators watched Austrian
engineer Louis Schwitzer win with an average speed of 57.4 miles
per hour. The track’s surface of crushed rock and tar proved a
disaster, breaking up in a number of places and causing the deaths
of two drivers, two mechanics and two spectators.

The surface was soon replaced with 3.2 million paving bricks, laid
in a bed of sand and fixed with mortar. Dubbed “The Brickyard,”
the speedway reopened in December 1909.

Ray Harroun wheels his No. 32 Marmon Wasp racecar to
victory in the inaugural Indy 500.

Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. is 78 today.

Elvis Aaron Presley  (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977)

 

Rock music legend Elvis Presley died in Memphis, Tennessee. The
death of the “King of Rock and Roll” brought legions of mourning fans
to Graceland, his mansion in Memphis. Doctors said he died of a heart
attack, likely brought on by his addiction to prescription barbiturates.

 

On August 16, 1954, a new magazine dedicated to covering sports appeared on American newsstands. Announcing itself with a
striking cover photo of Milwaukee Braves third baseman Eddie
Mathews, his swinging bat a blur against the dramatic backdrop
of a crowded Milwaukee County Stadium, Sports Illustrated is
considered a joke by some at its publisher and will not make
money for most of its first decade. Eventually, however, it will
become the undisputed leader in American sports media, the
sporting magazine of record and one of  the most recognizable
media brands in the world.

On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock music festival opened on a
patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New
York town of Bethel.

Promoters John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and
Michael Lang originally envisioned the festival as a way to raise
funds to build a recording studio and rock-and-roll retreat near
the town of Woodstock, New York. The longtime artists’ colony
was already a home base for Bob Dylan and other musicians.

Despite their relative inexperience, the young promoters managed
to sign a roster of top acts, including the Jefferson Airplane, the
Who, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin,
Jimi Hendrix (below), Creedence Clearwater Revival and many
more.