Today is Wednesday, Aug. 16, the 228th day of 2023 with 137 to follow.
The moon is new. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Leo. They include French physicist Gabriel Lippmann, inventor of color photography, in 1845; British soldier/writer T.E. Lawrence in 1888; former Israeli Prime Minister/Nobel Peace Prize laureate Menachem Begin in 1913; author Charles Bukowski in 1920; journalist Louis Lomax in 1922; actor Ann Blyth in 1928 (age 95); football Hall of Fame member/sports commentator Frank Gifford in 1930; actor Julie Newmar in 1933 (age 90); actor Lesley Ann Warren in 1946 (age 77); former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun in 1947 (age 76); actor Reginald VelJohnson in 1952 (age 71); TV personality Kathie Lee Gifford in 1953 (age 70); film director James Cameron in 1954 (age 69); actor Jeff Perry in 1955 (age 68); actor Laura Innes in 1957 (age 66); actor Angela Bassett in 1958 (age 65); singer Madonna, born Madonna Louise Ciccone, in 1958 (age 65); actor Timothy Hutton in 1960 (age 63); actor Steve Carell in 1962 (age 61); singer Emily Robison in 1972 (age 51); filmmaker Taika Waititi in 1975 (age 48); singer Vanessa Carlton in 1980 (age 43); actor Cam Gigandet in 1982 (age 41); actor Arden Cho in 1985 (age 38); actor Rumor Willis in 1988 (age 35); actor Evanna Lynch in 1991 (age 32); rapper Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, in 1991 (age 32); actor Cameron Monaghan in 1993 (age 30); Olympic swimmer Caeleb Dressel in 1996 (age 27).
On this date in history:
In 1812, British forces foiled plans for a U.S. invasion of Canada by capturing the city of Detroit.
In 1896, the North Country gold rush began with the discovery of gold in the Klondike region of Canada’s Yukon Territory.
In 1948, baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York of cancer at age 53.
In 1954, the first edition of Sports Illustrated was published.
In 1977, Elvis Presley, the king of rock ‘n’ roll, died of heart failure at his home in Memphis at age 42.
In 1987, a Northwest Airlines jet bound for Phoenix crashed on takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing 156 people. A 4-year-old girl, Celia Cichan, was the sole survivor.
In 2005, a West Caribbean Airways flight from Colombia crashed in a remote area of northwest Venezuela, killing 160 people.
In 2008, American swimmer Michael Phelps won his record eighth gold medal in a single Olympics in the Summer Games at Beijing.
In 2009, John Yettaw, a Missouri man convicted in Myanmar of illegally visiting political opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, serving a lengthy house-arrest sentence, was allowed to leave the country.
In 2012, the Ecuadorean government said it was granting political asylum in its London Embassy to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, trying to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning in a sexual assault investigation and subsequent extradition to the United States on allegations he published classified material. Ecuador withdrew its offer of asylum in April 2019, and London police arrested him.
In 2013, the MV Thomas Aquinas ferry carrying nearly 700 people collided with a cargo ship and sank off the Philippines. Authorities later said the accident killed about 60 people and many others were reported missing.
In 2020, Japan reported that its gross domestic product shrank 27.8% in the second quarter of 2020, its greatest economic contraction on record.
In 2021, the U.S. government declared its first ever water shortage in the Colorado River Basin, prompting mandatory water consumption cuts throughout the Southwest. Over the next year, water levels would drop so low in Lake Mead that multiple sets of skeletal remains would be uncovered.
A thought for the day: Norwegian painter Edvard Munch said: “Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye … it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.”
