GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, August 29, the 231st day of 2018 with 124 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 6:05 and sunset is @ 7:24. The moon is waning. The morning stars are stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury & Saturn. The evening stars are Neptune, Uranus & Venus.
ON THIS DAY IN: 1828 – A patent was issued to Robert Turner for the self-regulating wagon brake.
1833 – The “Factory Act” was passed in England to settle child labor laws.
1842 – The Treaty of Nanking was signed by the British and the Chinese. The treaty ended the first Opium War and gave the island of Hong Kong to Britain.
1885 – The first prizefight under the Marquis of Queensberry Rules was held in Cincinnati, OH. John L. Sullivan defeated Dominick McCaffery in six rounds.
1886 – In New York City, Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-chang’s chef invented chop suey.
1892 – Pop (Billy) Shriver (Chicago Cubs) caught a ball that was dropped from the top of the Washington Monument in Washington, DC.
1944 – During the continuing celebration of the liberation of France from the Nazis, 15,000 American troops marched down the Champs Elysees in Paris.
1945 – U.S. General Douglas MacArthur left for Japan to officially accept the surrender of the Japanese.
1949 – At the University of Illinois, a nuclear device was used for the first time to treat cancer patients.
1957 – Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina set a filibuster record in the U.S. when he spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes.
1962 – The lower level of the George Washington Bridge opened.
1965 – Gemini 5, carrying astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles (“Pete”) Conrad, splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean after eight days in space.
1966 – Mia Farrow withdrew from the cast of the ABC-TV’s “Peyton Place.”
1967 – The final episode of “The Fugitive” aired.
1971 – Hank Aaron became the first baseball player in the National League to hit 100 or more runs in each of 11 seasons.
1977 – Lou Brock brought his total of stolen bases to 893. The record he beat was held by Ty Cobb for 49 years.
1983 – Two U.S. marines were killed in Lebanon by the militia group Amal when they fired mortar shells at the Beirut airport.
1983 – The anchor of the USS Monitor, from the U.S. Civil War, was retrieved by divers.
1990 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in a television interview, declared that America could not defeat Iraq.
1991 – The Communist Party in the Soviet Union had its bank accounts frozen and activities were suspended because of the Party’s role in the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev.
1991 – The republics of Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to stay in the Soviet Union.
1992 – The U.N. Security Council agreed to send troops to Somalia to guard the shipments of food.
1994 – Mario Lemieux announced that he would be taking a medical leave of absence due to fatigue, an aftereffect of his 1993 radiation treatments. He would sit out the National Hockey Leagues (NHL) 1994-95 season.
1998 – Northwest Airlines pilots went on strike after their union rejected a last-minute company offer.
2004 – India test-launched a nuclear-capable missle able to carry a one-ton warhead. The weapon had a range of 1,560 miles.