On This Day

On this day in history:

• Pueblo Indians capture Santa Fe from the Spanish in 1680.
• The Battle of Dunkeld in Scotland in 1689.
• James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales in 1770.
• King Gustav III completes his coup d'etat by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing himself as an enlightened despot in 1772.
• Nat Turner leads black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion in 1831.
• Tlingit Indians destroy Fort Selkirk, Yukon Territory in 1852.
• The American Bar Association is founded in 1878.
• The first successful adding machine in the United States is patented by William Seward Burroughs in 1888.
• The Mona Lisa is stolen by a Louvre employee in 1911.
• The Battle of Stalingrad began in 1942. Also, Allied forces involved in the Guadalcanal campaign defeated an attack by Imperial Japanese Army soldiers in the Battle of the Tenaru.
• President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union in 1959.
• Soviet troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring in 1968.
• Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated at the Manila International Airport in 1983.
• Latvia declares renewal of its full independence in 1991.
• NATO decides to send a peace-keeping force to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in 2001.
• Hurricane Dean makes its first landfall in Costa Maya, Mexico with winds at 165 mph. Dean is the first storm since Hurricane Andrew to make landfall as a Category 5 in 2007.

Many interesting people were born on this day including Aubrey Beardsley (1872); William "Count" Basie (1904); Christopher Robin Milne, inspiration for the Winnie-the-Pooh stories (1920); Wilt Chamberlain (1936); Joe Strummer (1952); Archie Griffin, two-time winner of the Heisman Trophy (1954); Kim Cattrall (1956); Sergey Brin (1973), cofounder of Google, without which no blogger; Reuben Droughns (1978), who kept my fantasy league out of the cellar a few years back; and the new world hero and fastest man, Usain Bolt (1986).

And many died. Elizabeth Bathory (1614) the world's most prolific female serial killer; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English writer (1762); and Leon Trotsky (1940). Okay there were more, but these were the only ones I found interesting.

Today is the blogiversary--five years!
If you comment on this post before Sunday, August 24, you will be entered to win a commemorative Quaker-inspired sewing set (fob, biscornu, and needlebook) stitched by me from the Quaker Virtues pattern by ByGone Stitches on khaki linen with a mauve, khaki, and brown Needle Necessities cotton floss and a stitch bitch t-shirt (size XL).