This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
On this day in 1896, Gold discovered in the Yukon.
While salmon fishing near the Klondike River in Canada’s Yukon Territory on this day in 1896, George Carmack reportedly spots nuggets of gold in a creek bed. His lucky discovery sparks the last great gold rush in the American West.
Hoping to cash in on reported gold strikes in Alaska, Carmack had traveled there from California in 1881. After running into a dead end, he headed north into the isolated Yukon Territory, just across the Canadian border. In 1896, another prospector, Robert Henderson, told Carmack of finding gold in a tributary of the Klondike River. Carmack headed to the region with two Native American companions, known as Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie. On August 16, while camping near Rabbit Creek, Carmack reportedly spotted a nugget of gold jutting out from the creek bank. His two companions later agreed that Skookum Jim–Carmack’s brother-in-law–actually made the discovery.
1513 – Battle of Guinegate (Battle of the Spurs) – King Henry VIII of England defeats French Forces who are then forced to retreat.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: The Americans led by General John Stark routed British and Brunswick troops under Friedrich Baum at the Battle of Bennington in Walloomsac, New York.
1780 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Camden – The British defeat the Americans near Camden, South Carolina.
1792 – Maximilien Robespierre presents the petition of the Commune of Paris to the Legislative Assembly, which demanded the formation of a revolutionary tribunal.
1812 – War of 1812: American General William Hull surrenders Fort Detroit without a fight to the British Army.
1819 – Seventeen people die and over 600 are injured by cavalry charges at the Peterloo Massacre at a public meeting at St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, England.
1841 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.
1858 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. However, a weak signal will force a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
1865 – Restoration Day in the Dominican Republic: The Dominican Republic regains its independence after 4 years of fighting against the Spanish Annexation.
1868 – Arica, Peru (now Chile) is devastated by a tsunami which followed a magnitude 8.5 earthquake in the Peru-Chile Trench off the coast. The earthquake and tsunami killed an estimated 25,000 people in Arica and perhaps 70,000 people in all.
1869 – Battle of Acosta Nu: A Paraguay battalion made up of children is massacred by the Brazilian Army during the War of the Triple Alliance.
1870 – Franco-Prussian War: The Battle of Mars-La-Tour is fought, resulting in a Prussian victory.
1896 – Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmack and Dawson Charlie discover gold in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.
1913 – Tohoku Imperial University of Japan (modern day Tohoku University) admits its first female students.
1913 – Completion of the Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary.
1914 – World War I: Battle of Cer begins.
1920 – Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians is hit in the head by a fastball thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees, and dies early the next day. To date, Chapman is the second player to die from injuries sustained in a Major League Baseball game, the first being Doc Powers in 1909.
1929 – The 1929 Palestine riots break out in the British Mandate of Palestine between Arabs and Jews and continue until the end of the month. In total, 133 Jews and 116 Arabs are killed.
1930 – The first color sound cartoon, called Fiddlesticks, is made by Ub Iwerks.
1940 – World War II: The Communist Party is banned in German-occupied Norway.
1942 – World War II: The two-person crew of the U.S. naval blimp L-8 disappears without a trace on a routine anti-submarine patrol over the Pacific Ocean. The blimp drifts without her crew and crash-lands in Daly City, California.
1945 – An assassination attempt is made on Japan’s prime minister, Kantaro Suzuki.
1945 – Puyi, the last Chinese emperor and ruler of Manchukuo, is captured by Soviet troops.
1954 – The first edition of Sports Illustrated is published.
1960 – Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
1960 – Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,330 m), setting three records that still stand today: High-altitude jump, free-fall, and highest speed by a human without an aircraft.
1962 – Pete Best replaced by Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) as drummer for The Beatles.
1964 – Vietnam War: A coup d’etat replaces Duong Van Minh with General Nguyen Khanh as President of South Vietnam. A new constitution is established with aid from the U.S. Embassy.
1966 – Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigations of Americans who have aided the Viet Cong. The committee intends to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupt the meeting and 50 people are arrested.
1969 – Day two of the Woodstock Festival.
1972 – The Royal Moroccan Air Force fires upon, in an unsuccessful coup d’etat attempt, Hassan II of Morocco’s plane while he is traveling back to Rabat.
1989 – A solar flare from the Sun creates a geomagnetic storm that affects micro chips, leading to a halt of all trading on Toronto’s stock market.
1992 – In response to an appeal by President Fernando Collor de Mello to wear green and yellow as a way to show support for him, thousands of Brazilians take to the streets dressed in black.
2003 – U.S. Representative from South Dakota Bill Janklow hits and kills a motorcyclist with his car at a rural intersection near Trent, South Dakota; he will eventually be convicted of manslaughter and will resign from Congress.
* Children’s Day (Paraguay)
* Christian Feast Day:
* Roch
* Simplician
* Stephen I of Hungary
* Translation of the Acheiropoietos icon from Edessa to Constantinople. (Eastern Orthodox Church)
* August 16 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
* Gozan no Okuribi (Kyoto, Japan)
* Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Gabon from France in 1960.
* Restoration Day (Dominican Republic)
* Xicolatada (Palau-de-Cerdagne, France)
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