Today is Saturday, Aug. 17, the 230th day of 2024. There are 136 days left in the year.
Today in history: On August 17, 1998, President Bill Clinton gave grand jury testimony via closed-circuit television from the White House concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; he then delivered a TV address in which he admitted his relationship with Lewinsky was “wrong” but denied previously committing perjury (Clinton was subsequently impeached by the House of Representatives, but acquitted in the Senate).
Also on this date:
In 1807, Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat made its first voyage, heading up the Hudson River on a successful round trip between New York City and Albany.
In 1863, federal batteries and ships began bombarding Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor during the Civil War, but the Confederates managed to hold on despite several days of shelling.
In 1915, a mob in Cobb County, Georgia, lynched Jewish businessman Leo Frank, 31, whose death sentence for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan had been commuted to life imprisonment. (Frank, who’d maintained his innocence, was pardoned by the state of Georgia in 1986.)
In 1945, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed independence for Indonesia, setting off the Indonesian National Revolution against Dutch rule.
In 1945, the George Orwell novel “Animal Farm,” an allegorical satire of Soviet Communism, was first published in London by Martin Secker & Warburg.
In 1959, trumpeter Miles Davis released “Kind of Blue,” regarded as one of the most influential jazz albums of all time.
In 1978, the first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight ended as Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed their Double Eagle II outside Paris.
In 1988, Pakistani President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel (RAY’-fehl) were killed in a mysterious plane crash.
In 1999, more than 17,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the Kocaeli Province of Turkey.
Today’s Birthdays: Computer scientist Margaret Hamilton is 88. Actor Robert DeNiro is 81. Businessman Larry Ellison is 80. Film director Martha Coolidge is 78. Filmmaker/author Julian Fellowes is 75. Tennis Hall of Famer Guillermo Vilas is 72. Singer Belinda Carlisle is 66. Author Jonathan Franzen is 65. Actor Sean Penn is 64. Singer/actor Donnie Wahlberg is 55. College Basketball Hall of Famer and retired NBA All-Star Christian Laettner is 55. Rapper Posdnuos (PAHS’-deh-noos) (De La Soul) is 55. Tennis Hall of Famer Jim Courier is 54. Soccer great Thierry Henry is 47. Rock climber Alex Honnold is 39. Actor Austin Butler is 33. Singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers is 30.
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