GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, August 19, the 232nd day of 2015 with 134 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 5:54 and sunset is @ 7:41. The moon is waxing. The morning stars are stars are Mars, Neptune & Uranus. The evening stars are Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn & Venus.
ON THIS DAY IN: 1812 – “Old Ironsides” (the USS Constitution) won a battle against the British frigate Guerriere east of Nova Scotia.
1848 – The discovery of gold in California was reported by the New York Herald.
1856 – Gail Borden received a patent for his process of condensing milk by vacuum.
1909 – The first car race to be run on brick occurred at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
1917 – Team managers John McGraw and Christy Matthewson were arrested for breaking New York City’s blue laws. The crime was their teams were playing baseball on Sunday.
1919 – Afghanistan gained independence from Britain.
1929 – “Amos and Andy,” the radio comedy program, made its debut on NBC starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll.
1934 – Adolf Hitler was approved for sole executive power in Germany as Fuehrer.
1940 – The new Civil Aeronautics Administration awarded honorary license #1 to Orville Wright.
1942 – About 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France. They suffered about 50 percent casualties.
1960 – Francis Gary Powers, an American U-2 pilot, was convicted of espionage in Moscow.
1960 – Two dogs were launched in a satellite into Earth’s orbit by the Soviet Union.
1962 – Homero Blancas shot a 55 at the Premier Invitational Golf Tournament held in Longview, TX. It was the lowest score inU.S. competitive golf history.
1974 – During an anti-American protest in Nicosia, Cyprus, U.S. Ambassador Rodger P. Davies was fatally wounded by a bullet while in the American embassy.
1981 – Two Libyan SU-22s were shot down by two U.S. Navy F-14 fighters in the Gulf of Sidra.
1991 – Soviet hard-liners announced that President Mikhail Gorbachev had been removed from power. Gorbachev returned to power two days later.
1998 – The first piece of the 351 foot bronze statue of Christopher Columbus arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
1999 – Lorne Michaels received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1999 – In Belgrade, thousands of Serbs attended a rally to demand the resignation of Yugoslavia’s President Slobodan Milosevic.
2004 – Google Inc. stock began selling on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The initial price was set at $85 and ended the day at $100.34 with more than 22 million shares traded.