#Middlebury
On Aug. 30, 1776, Gen. George Washington rejects British Gen. William Howe’s second letter of reconciliation. Howe had failed to use Washington’s title of “general” when addressing the letter.- On Sept. 1, 1864, renowned Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow drowns off the North Carolina coast when her craft capsizes while fleeing a Union gunboat. Greenhow was carrying Confederate dispatches and $2,000 in gold sewn into her underclothes. The weight of the gold pulled her under.
- On Aug. 28, 1917, 10 women suffragists are arrested as they picket the White House to demand that President Woodrow Wilson support a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. After the jailed women went on a hunger strike and had to be force fed for months, Wilson finally agreed to a suffrage amendment.
- On Aug. 26, 1939, the first televised Major League baseball game is broadcast. Announcer Red Barber called the game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in New York. The video coverage was somewhat crude. There were only two stationary camera angles.
- On Aug. 31, 1955, William Cobb of General Motors demonstrates his 15-inch-long “Sunmobile,” the world’s first solar-powered automobile, at an auto show in Chicago.
- On Aug. 27, 1967, Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, is found dead of an accidental drug overdose in his Sussex, England, home. In 1962, Epstein was hired in a deal that gave him 25 percent of the band’s gross earnings for five years.
- On Aug. 29, 2004, Brazilian distance runner Vanderlei de Lima is attacked and dragged off the course by a spectator while running the marathon in the Summer Olympics. The spectator was a defrocked Irish priest dressed in orange and green. De Lima, who held a 30-second lead when he was attacked, finished in third place.
© 2019 Hearst Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
You must be logged in to post a comment.