Moments in Time – July 31, 2024

#MiddleburyCT

• On Aug. 12, 2014, actress Lauren Bacall – whose debut film in 1944, “To Have and Have Not” (also featuring future husband Humphrey Bogart), brought her nearly instant fame – died in New York City at 89. Bacall’s notable career spanned almost seven decades and included “The Big Sleep” (1946), “How to Marry a Millionaire” (1953) and “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996).
• On Aug. 13, 1906, the all-Black infantrymen of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Regiment were accused of killing a white bartender and wounding a white police officer in Brownsville, Texas, despite evidence of their innocence. All were dishonorably discharged. However, a later military investigation exonerated the men and their records were restored to reflect honorable discharges, but no financial settlements were paid.
• On Aug. 14, 1948, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s “beaver drop” relocation program moved 74 of the animals from Northwestern Idaho to the Chamberlain Basin in Central Idaho via parachutes from an airplane, after complaints about property damage from residents.
• On Aug. 15, 1995, Shannon Faulkner became the first female cadet matriculated at The Citadel, under the escort of U.S. Marshals, but dropped out within a week, citing emotional and psychological abuse and physical exhaustion. Four years later, she told the Associated Press: “I went into it knowing I may not get anything out of it. I was doing it for the next woman.”
• On Aug. 16, 1858, President James Buchanan inaugurated the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with England’s Queen Victoria. Just a few weeks afterward, however, a weak signal forced a shutdown of the service.
• On Aug. 17, 1969, Hurricane Camille arrived at Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, with winds estimated between 150 and 205 mph and 70-foot waves. One of a few category 5 hurricanes to make landfall in the last 70 years, it was responsible for the deaths of nearly 300 people and the destruction of thousands of homes in Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia and Louisiana.
• On Aug. 18, 2007, a German Christian aid worker was kidnapped at gunpoint by a criminal organization in the Afghan capital of Kabul, marking the first abduction of a foreigner in the capital in two years. She was released by her captors a few days later.

© 2024 King Features Synd., Inc.