News, Events, Birthdays, History - August 27 - September 2
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Birthdays Lyndon Baines Johnson - August 27, 1908
36th President of the United States, succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. He was elected to the office in his own right by winning by a large margin in the 1964 presidential election. Johnson was responsible for deisgning the "Great Society" legislation that included laws that upheld civil rights, Medicare, Medicaid, aid to education. Michael Jackson - August 29, 1958
 Michael Joseph Jackson, known as the "King of Pop", was an American musician and one of the most commercially successful entertainers of all time. His career was marred by controversies and scandals, including charges of child molestation. Jackson died at the age of 50 in Los Angeles, California, after suffering from cardiac arrest. Autopsies revealed lethal combinations of prescription drugs, and his death has since been ruled a homicide. Events August 28, 1963 - March on Washington The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations, under the theme "jobs and freedom". March organizers themselves disagreed over the purpose of the march. Some saw it as a gesture of support for a civil rights bill that had been introduced by the Kennedy Administration, while others, including Martin Luther King, saw it as a way of raising both civil rights and economic issues to national attention beyond the Kennedy bill. Still others felt it was a way of challenging and condemning the Kennedy administration's inaction and lack of support for civil rights for African-Americans. It was at this event that Martin Luther King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech. August 29, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina Hits the Gulf Coast
Have you noticed that we've had only a few hurricanes this season? Not so in 2005 - when Hurricane Katrina left  its mark as the costliest hurricane, as well as one of the five deadliest, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall. Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 3 storm on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast Louisiana. It caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge. The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed, in many cases hours after the storm had moved inland.August 29, 1786 - Shay's Rebellion Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts (mainly Springfield) from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolution who led the rebels, known as "Shaysites" or "Regulators". Most of Shays' compatriots were poor farmers angered by what they felt to be crushing debt and taxes. The participants in Shays' Rebellion believed they were acting in the spirit of the Revolution and modeled their tactics after the crowd activities of the 1760s and 1770s, using "liberty poles" and "liberty trees" to symbolize their cause. Those participating in the ongoing rebellion were eventually defeated by a milita sent on authority of the Massachusetts governor. Several of the rebels were fined, imprisoned, and sentenced to death, but ultimately most of the condemned men were either pardoned or had their death sentences commuted. Shays himself was pardoned in 1788 and he returned to Massachusetts where he died poor and obscure in 1825. August 31, 1997 - Princess Diana Death Diana Frances Spencer was born in July, 1961,  and died on August 31, 1997. In 1981 she married Prince Charles, and became known as Diana, Princess of Wales. In the early 1990s their marriage began to fall apart, ultimately ending in divorce in August of 1996. She later began dating Dodi Al-Fayed, the son of an Egyptian billionaire who owned, among many things, the Hotel Ritz Paris. It was the acting security director of this hotel - Henri Paul - who was instructed to drive Diana and Dodi through Paris and elude the ever-present group of reporters and photographers. A combination of excessive speed and driver intoxication led to the crash of their vehicle and the death of Diana, Dodi and Henri Paul. One bodyguard - Treveor Rees Jones - survived the crash. Diana's two sons - Princes William and Harry, are second and third in line to the thrones of the United Kingdom and fifteen other Commonweatlth Realms.September 1, 1985 - Titanic Discovered The RMS Titanic was a British Olympic-class passenger liner that sank in the Atlantic Ocean on the night of April 14, 1912. The wreck of the Titanic was located by a French and American team on September 1st, 1985.  The Titanic left Southampton, England on April 10, 1912 with 2,227 passengers and crew aboard. This was the ship's first, or 'maiden' voyage, and the destination was New York. At 11:40 p.m. on the night of 14 April, traveling at a speed of 20.5 knots, she struck an iceberg on her starboard bow. At 2:20 a.m. she sank, approximately 13.5 miles east-southeast of the position from which her distress call was transmitted. Lost at sea were 1,522 people, including passengers and crew. The high casualty rate was due in part to the fact that, although complying with the regulations of the time, the ship did not carry enough lifeboats for everyone aboard. The 705 survivors, afloat in the ship's twenty lifeboats, were rescued within hours by the Cunard Liner, Carpathia. September - Library Card Sign-Up Month |
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