GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, August 30, the 239th day of 2017 with 126 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 6:06 and sunset is @ 7:22. The moon is waxing. The morning stars are stars are Jupiter, Saturn & Mercury. The evening stars are Mars, Neptune, Uranus & Venus.
ON THIS DAY IN: 1146 – European leaders outlawed the crossbow.
1645 – American Indians and the Dutch made a peace treaty at New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam later became known as New York.
1682 – William Penn sailed from England and later established the colony of Pennsylvania in America.
1780 – General Benedict Arnold secretly promised to surrender the West Point fort to the British army.
1806 – New York City’s second daily newspaper, the “Daily Advertiser,” was published for the last time.
1809 – Charles Doolittle Walcott first discovered fossils near Burgess Pass. He named the site Burgess Shale after nearby Mt. Burgess.
1862 – The Confederates defeated Union forces at the second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, VA.
1905 – Ty Cobb made his major league batting debut with the Detroit Tigers.
1928 – The Independence of India League was established in India.
1941 – During World War II, the Nazis severed the last railroad link between Leningrad and the rest of the Soviet Union.
1945 – General Douglas MacArthur set up Allied occupation headquarters in Japan.
1951 – The Philippines and the United States signed a defense pact.
1956 – In Louisianna, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opened.
1960 – A partial blockade was imposed on West Berlin by East Germany.
1963 – The “Hotline” between Moscow and Washington, DC, went into operation.
1965 – Thurgood Marshall was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a Supreme Court justice. Marshall was the first black justice to sit on the Supreme Court.
1982 – P.L.O. leader Yasir Arafat left Beirut for Greece.
1983 – The space shuttle Challenger blasted off with Guion S. Bluford Jr. aboard. He was the first black American to travel in space.
1984 – The space shuttle Discovery lifted off for the first time. On the voyage three communications satellites were deployed.
1984 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and several others, were inducted into the Sportscasters Hall of Fame.
1991 – The Soviet republic of Azerbaijan declared its independence.
1993 – On CBS-TV “The Late Show with David Letterman” premiered.
1994 – Rosa Parks was robbed and beaten by Joseph Skipper. Parks was known for her refusal to give up her seat on a bus in 1955, which sparked the civil rights movement.
1994 – The largest U.S. defense contractor was created when the Lockheed and Martin Marietta corporations agreed to a merger.
1996 – An expedition to raise part of the Titanic failed when the nylon lines being used to raise part of the hull snapped.
1999 – The residents of East Timor overwhelmingly voted for independence from Indonesia. The U.N. announced the result on September 4.
2002 – Conoco Inc. and Phillips Petroleum merged to create ConocoPhillips. The new company was the third largest integrated energy company and the second largest refining company in the U.S.