Today is Monday, Aug. 15, the 228th day of 2016. There are 138 days left in the year.
On this date:
In 1483, the Sistine Chapel was consecrated by Pope Sixtus IV.
In 1812, the Battle of Fort Dearborn took place as Potawatomi warriors attacked a U.S. military garrison of about 100 people.
In 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened as the SS Ancon crossed the just-completed waterway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
In 1935, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory.
In 1939, the MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz” opened at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
In 1947, India became independent after some 200 years of British rule.
In 1965, The Beatles played to a crowd of more than 55,000 at New York’s Shea Stadium.
In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York.
In 1974, a gunman attempted to shoot South Korean President Park Chung-hee during a speech; although Park was unhurt, his wife, Yuk Young-soo, was struck and killed, along with a teenage girl. (The gunman was later executed.)
In 1989, F.W. de Klerk was sworn in as acting president of South Africa, one day after P.W. Botha resigned as the result of a power struggle within the National Party.
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