This Week in History

AUGUST 17

Beth Hanning was born.

Tara Benn was born.

Rick Horan was born.

1896 – Prospectors found gold in Alaska, a discovery that set off the Klondike gold rush.

2008 – U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal, breaking the record set by Mark Spitz in the 1972 Games.

AUGUST 18

Jon Kiebon was born.

1227 – Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan died in China.

1963 – James Meredith became the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

AUGUST  19

Whitney Aycock was born.

Courtney Carroll was born.

Jimmy Mullen was born.

1934 – Germans voted to make Adolf Hitler Fuhrer.

1960 – American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was convicted of espionage in Moscow.

AUGUST 20

Kendra Lane-Allen was born.

Jamie Agoglia was born.

1980 – Italian Reinhold Messner made the first successful solo ascent of Mount Everest and without oxygen.

2000 – Tiger Woods won the PGA Championship becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year.

AUGUST 21

Mike Kehoe was born.

Janice Weinert was born.

1858 – The famous debates between Senator Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln began in Illinois.

1911 – The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre Museum in France by an Italian waiter, Vicenzo Perruggia.

AUGUST 22

1902 – Theodore Roosevelt became the first United States president to ride in an automobile.

2004 – A version of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream was stolen in Norway. Another version had been stolen in 1994.

AUGUST 23

Maryann Polanco was born.

Sarah Bradwisch was born.

Brian Galarza was born.

1305 – Scottish leader and national hero, William Wallace, was executed in London.

1926 – Silent film star Rudolph Valentino died in New York at age 31.