Today in History

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 22, the 234th day of 2018. There are 131 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On August 22, 1972, President Richard Nixon was nominated for a second term of office by the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach.

On this date

In 1787, inventor John Fitch demonstrated his steamboat on the Delaware River to delegates from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

In 1851, the schooner America outraced more than a dozen British vessels off the English coast to win a trophy that came to be known as the America’s Cup.

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln responded to Horace Greeley’s call for more drastic steps to abolish slavery; Lincoln replied that his priority was saving the Union, but he also repeated his personal wish “ that all men everywhere could be free.”

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, which remained under Japanese control until the end of World War II.

In 1932, the British Broadcasting Corp. conducted its first experimental television broadcast, using a 30-line mechanical system.

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon were nominated for second terms in office by the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.

In 1972, John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile took seven employees hostage at a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Brooklyn, New York, during a botched robbery; the siege, which ended with Wojtowicz’s arrest and Naturile’s killing by the FBI, inspired the 1975 movie “Dog Day Afternoon.”

In 1978, President Jomo Kenyatta, a leading figure in Kenya’s struggle for independence, died; Vice President Daniel arap Moi was sworn in as acting president.

In 1985, 55 people died when fire broke out aboard a British Airtours charter jet on a runway at Manchester Airport in England.

In 1986, Kerr- McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million, settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit. The Rob Reiner coming-of-age film “Stand By Me” was put into wide release by Columbia Pictures.

In 1989, Black Panthers cofounder Huey P. Newton was shot to death in Oakland, California. (Gunman Tyrone Robinson was later sentenced to 32 years to life in prison.)

In 1992, on the second day of the Ruby Ridge siege in Idaho, an FBI sharpshooter killed Vicki Weaver, the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver (the sharpshooter later said he was targeting the couple’s friend Kevin Harris, and didn’t see Vicki Weaver).