Today is Friday, Aug. 12, the 225th day of 2016. There are 141 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On Aug. 12, 1939, the MGM movie musical “The Wizard of Oz,” starring Judy Garland, had its world premiere at the Strand Theater in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, three days before opening in Hollywood.
On this date
In 1867, President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him as he defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
In 1898, fighting in the Spanish- American War came to an end.
In 1915, the novel “Of Human Bondage,” by William Somerset Maugham, was first published in the United States, a day before it was released in England.
In 1941, Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, head of the government of Vichy France, called on his countrymen to give full support to Nazi Germany.
In 1944, during World War II, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., eldest son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was killed with his copilot when their explosives-laden Navy plane blew up over England.
In 1953, the Soviet Union conducted a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.
In 1960, the first balloon communications satellite — the Echo 1 — was launched by the United States from Cape Canaveral.
In 1962, one day after launching Andrian Nikolayev into orbit, the Soviet Union also sent up cosmonaut Pavel Popovich; both men landed safely Aug. 15.
In 1978, Pope Paul VI, who had died Aug. 6 at age 80, was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica.
In 1981, IBM introduced its first personal computer, the model 5150, at a press conference in New York.
In 1985, the world’s worst single aircraft disaster occurred as a crippled Japan Airlines Boeing 747 on a domestic flight crashed into a mountain, killing 520 people. (Four people survived.)
In 1994, Woodstock ‘94 opened in Saugerties, New York.
Ten years ago: Thousands of people gathered across from the White House, even though President George W. Bush was out of town, to condemn U.S. and Israeli policies in the Middle East.
Five years ago: A divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta struck down the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care overhaul, the so-called individual mandate. (The mandate was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2012.) Tiger Woods missed the cut at the PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club with a 3-over 73, finishing out of the top 100 for the first time ever in a major.
The Associated Press
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