from Windsor McCay’s Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, 1909

Today in History

• Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through national selection in the Linnean Society of London journal (1858)
• Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture premiers (1882)
• The first commercial radio station begins broadcasting in Detroit (1920)
• The National Football League (originally American Professional Football Conference) is founded (1920)
• Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam, a record that will stand for 75 years (1938)
• Exiled revolutionary Leon Trotsky is attacked with an ice axe; he dies the following day (1940)
• Churchill makes his “Never was so much owed by so many to so few” speech (1940)
• 168 captured Allied airmen are taken to Buchenwald rather than a POW camp for being “terrorfliegers.” They will remain there until mid-October (1944)
• Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, ending the Prague Spring (1968)
• NASA launches Viking 1 (1975)
• NASA launches Voyager 2 (1977)

Birthdays

• Bernardo O’Higgins, Chilean general (1778)
• Benjamin Harrison, 23rd US President (1833)
• Edgar Guest, poet (1881)
• Paul Tillich, philosopher and theologian (1886)
• H. P. Lovecraft, horror writer (1890)
• Jack Teagarden, trombonist (1905)
• Eero Saarinen, architect (1910)
• Jacqueline Susann, author (1918)
• Don King, boxing promoter (1931)
• Ron Paul, libertarian politician (1935)
• Slobodan Milosevic, Serbian president tried for war crimes (1941)
• Isaac Hayes, singer-songwriter (1942)
• Rajiv Gandhi, Indian prime minister (1944)
• Connie Chung, television journalist (1946)
• Ray Wise, actor (1947)
• Robert Plant, singer-songwriter (1948)
• Al Roker, TV weatherman (1954)
• James Marsters, actor (1962)
• Fred Durst, singer-songwriter (1970)
• Amy Adams, actress and singer (1974)

Deaths

• William Booth, co-founder of the Salvation Army (1912)
• Paul Ehrlich, physician and Nobel laureate (1915)
• Fred Hoyle, astronomer and author (2001)
• Kim Stanley, actress (2001)
• Leona Helmsley, hotelier known as the “Queen of Mean” (2007)
• Gene Upshaw, football player (2008)
• Phyllis Diller, comedienne (2012)
• Elmore Leonard, author (013)
• Marian McPartland, pianist (2013)
• Jerry Lewis, comedian and filmmaker (2017)

Holidays and Observances

• Feast of Asma (Bahai faith, years in which Bahai Nawruz falls on March 21)
• Indian Askshay Urja Day (India)
• Restoration of Independence Day (Estonia)
• Revolution of the King and People (Morocco)
• Saint Stephen’s Day (Hungary)
• World Mosquito Day

August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years). There are 133 days remaining until the end of the year.