History of 19 August
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 in U.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.
2016 – A federal judge ordered Hillary Clinton to answer questions from the watchdog group Judicial Watch in writing about her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
2017 – Tens of thousands of farmed non-native Atlantic salmon are accidentally released into the wild in Washington waters in the 2017 Cypress Island Atlantic salmon pen break.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Nick Kennedy, English rugby player
- 1981 – Percy Watson, American football player, and wrestler
- 1982 – J. J. Hardy, American baseball player
- 1982 – Kevin Rans, Belgian pole vaulter
- 1982 – Stipe Miocic, American professional mixed martial artist
- 1983 – Mike Conway, English race car driver
- 1983 – Missy Higgins, Australian singer-songwriter
- 1983 – John McCargo, American football player
- 1984 – Simon Bird, English actor, and screenwriter
- 1984 – Alessandro Matri, Italian footballer
- 1984 – Ryan Taylor, English footballer
- 1985 – David A. Gregory, American actor
- 1985 – Gavin Cooper, Australian rugby league player
- 1985 – Lindsey Jacobellis, American snowboarder
- 1986 – Sotiris Balafas, Greek footballer
- 1986 – Saori Kimura, Japanese volleyball player
- 1986 – Christina Perri, American singer, and songwriter
- 1987 – Nick Driebergen, Dutch swimmer
- 1987 – Nico Hulkenberg, German race car driver
- 1987 – Anaïs Lameche, French-Swedish singer
- 1987 – Richard Stearman, English footballer
- 1988 – Hoodie Allen, American rapper
- 1988 – Kirk Cousins, American football player
- 1988 – Veronica Roth, American author
- 1989 – Romeo Miller, American basketball player, rapper, actor
- 1990 – Danny Galbraith, Scottish footballer
- 1994 – Guadalupe Perez Rojas, an Argentinian tennis player
- 1994 – Nafissatou Thiam, Belgian pentathlete
- 1994 – Fernando Gaviria, Colombian cyclist
- 1995 – Dylan Phythian, Australian rugby league player
- 1996 – Hsu Ching-wen, a Taiwanese tennis player