History of 22 August
1906 – The Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, NJ began to manufacture the Victrola. The hand-cranked unit, with horn cabinet, sold for $200.
1910 – Japan formally annexed Korea.
1911 – It was announced that Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” had been stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. The painting reappeared two years later in Italy.
1932 – The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) began its first TV broadcast in England.
1938 – Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers appeared on the cover of “LIFE” magazine.
1941 – Nazi troops reached the outskirts of Leningrad during World War II.
1950 – Althea Gibson became the first black tennis player to be accepted into a national competition.
1951 – 75,052 people watched the Harlem Globetrotters perform. It was the largest crowd to see a basketball game.
1959 – Stephen Rockefeller married Anne Marie Rasmussen. Anne had once been a maid for the powerful and wealthy Rockefeller family.
1968 – Pope Paul VI arrived in Bogota, Colombia, for the start of the first papal visit to Latin America.
1972 – Due to its racial policies, Rhodesia was asked to withdraw from the 20th Olympic Summer Games.
1973 – Henry Kissinger was named Secretary of State by U.S. President Nixon. Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize in the same year.
1984 – The last Volkswagen Rabbit rolled off the assembly line in New Stanton, PA.
1986 – Kerr-McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million to settle a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit.
1989 – Nolan Ryan became the first major league pitcher to strike out 5000 batters. (MLB)
1990 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush signed an order for calling reservists to aid in the build-up of troops in the Persian Gulf.
1990 – The U.S. State Department announced that the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait would not be closed under President Saddam Hussein’s demand.
1990 – Angry smokers blocked a street in Moscow to protest the summer-long cigarette shortage.
1991 – It was announced by Yugoslavia that a truce ordered on August 7th with Croatia had collapsed.
1991 – Mikhail S. Gorbachev returned to Moscow after the collapse of the hard-liners’ coup. On the same day, he purged the men that had tried to oust him.
1992 – In Rostock, Germany, neo-Nazi violence broke out against foreigners.
1996 – U.S. President Clinton signed legislation that ended guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanded work from recipients.
1998 – “The Howard Stern Radio Show” premiered on CBS to about 70% of the U.S.
2004 – In Oslo, Norway, a version of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” and his work “Madonna” were stolen from the Munch Museum. This version of “The Scream,” one of four different versions, was a tempera painting on board.
2006 – Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612 crashes near the Russian border over eastern Ukraine, killing all 170 people on board.
2006 – Grigori Perelman is awarded the Fields Medal for his proof of the Poincaré conjecture in mathematics but refuses to accept the medal.
2007 – The Texas Rangers defeat the Baltimore Orioles 30–3, the most runs scored by a team in modern Major League Baseball history.
2012 – Ethnic clashes over grazing rights for cattle in Kenya’s Tana River District result in more than 52 deaths.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Alex Holmes, American football player
- 1981 – Jang Hyun-kyu, South Korean footballer (d. 2012)
- 1981 – Christina Obergföll, German athlete
- 1983 – Theo Bos, Dutch cyclist
- 1983 – Jahri Evans, American football player
- 1984 – Lee Camp, English footballer
- 1984 – Lawrence Quaye, Ghanaian-Qatari footballer
- 1985 – Luke Russert, American journalist
- 1985 – Jey Uso, Samoan-American wrestler
- 1985 – Jimmy Uso, Samoan-American wrestler
- 1986 – Stephen Ireland, Irish footballer
- 1986 – Neville, English wrestler
- 1986 – Tokushoryu Makoto, Japanese sumo wrestler
- 1987 – Leonardo Moracci, Italian footballer
- 1987 – Apollo Crews, American wrestler
- 1989 – Giacomo Bonaventura, Italian footballer
- 1990 – Randall Cobb, American football player
- 1990 – Drew Hutchison, American baseball player
- 1990 – Robbie Rochow, Australian rugby league player
- 1991 – Federico Macheda, Italian footballer
- 1991 – Brayden Schenn, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1992 – Ema Burgić Bucko, a Bosnian tennis player
- 1994 – Olli Maatta, Finnish ice hockey player
- 1995 – Dua Lipa, English singer-songwriter
- 1996 – Jessica-Jane Applegate, British Paralympic swimmer