Friday! History, Music, Cinema, Sports, Space, Quotes, More!

On This Date In 1099 The Battle of Ascalon took place, and is often considered the last action of the First Crusade, with Godfrey of Bouillon defeating an invading Fatimid army lead by al-Afdal Shahanshah. On This Date In 1676 King Philip, chief of the Wampanoag Indians, was shot dead by Native American Pilgrim ally, John Alderman, ending King Philip’s War, save for a few minor attacks in Maine in 1677. On This Date In 1774 Robert Southey, Wordsworth’s predecessor as poet laureate of England, is born in Bristol. On This Date In 1776 General George Washington wrote to Major General Charles Lee that the Continental Army’s situation had deteriorated due to an outbreak of smallpox and problems with desertion. Washington feared the superior British navy might blockade New York, thus isolating the city from communications with other states. On This Date In 1820 Manuel Lisa, the first fur trader to develop the upper Missouri River territory explored by Lewis and Clark, died in St. Louis, Nissouri On This Date In 1833 The Town of Chicago was incorporated with a population of 350. On This Date In 1862 Confederate cavalry leader General John Hunt Morgan captured a small Federal garrison in Gallatin, Tennessee, just north of Nashville. The incident was part of a larger operation against the army of Union General Don Carlos Buell, which was threatening Chattanooga by late summer. Morgan sought to cut Buell’s supply lines with his bold strike. On This Date In 1877 Thomas Alva Edison completed the model for the first phonograph. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug12.html On This Date In 1883 Astronomer José Bonilla reported he saw more than 300 dark, unidentified objects crossing before the sun while observing sunspot activity at Zacatecas Observatory in Mexico. Although it was subsequently determined the objects were actually high flying geese, Bonilla is usually given the distinction of having taken the earliest photo of an unidentified flying object, or UFO. On This Date In 1898 The brief and one-sided Spanish-American War came to an end when Spain formally agreed to a peace protocol on U.S. terms: the cession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Manila in the Philippines to the United States pending a final peace treaty. On This Date In 1914 The Battle of Haelen, a cavalry battle on the Western Front at the start World War I, took place between German forces led by Georg von der Marwitz and the Belgian army led by Leon De Witte, and resulted in a tactical victory for the Belgians. On This Date In 1914 Great Britian and France declared war on Austria-Hungary. On This Date In 1920 Charles Ponzi surrendered to federal authorities and was charged with mail fraud. On This Date In 1938 Adolf Hitler instituted the Mother’s Cross, to encourage German women to have more children, to be awarded each year on August 12, Hitler’s mother’s birthday. On This Date In 1939 “The Wizard of Oz”, starring Judy Garland and featuring words and music by E.Y. “Yip” Harburg and Harold Arlen, received its world premiere in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. On This Date In 1940 Germany began its main assault on English coastal airfields. The main attack upon the RAF's defences was code-named Adlerangriff ("Eagle Attack"). The first attempt was made to blind the Dowding system, the complex infrastructure of detection, command, and control that ran the battle, when aircraft from the specialist fighter-bomber unit, Erprobungsgruppe 210, attacked four radar stations. On This Date In 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met on board a ship at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, to confer on issues ranging from support for Russia to threatening Japan to postwar peace. On This Date In 1944 Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. was killed while serving in World War II, piloting a PB4Y-1 Liberator Radio Controlled Drone in Operation Aphrodite. http://www.aviationmuseum.net/Joe_Kennedy.htm On This Date In 1949 The Geneva Conventions were adopted in four parts into the Additional Protocols forming the core of the international humanitarian law (IHL), the body of law that regulates the conduct of armed conflict and seeks to limit its effects. http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/6756482d86146898c125641e004aa3c5 On This Date In 1953 Less than one year after the United States tested its first hydrogen bomb, the Soviets detonated a 400-kiloton device in Kazakhstan. The explosive power was 30 times that of the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and the mushroom cloud produced by it stretched five miles into the sky. Known as the “Layer Cake”, the bomb was fueled by layers of uranium and lithium deuteride, a hydrogen isotope. The Soviet bomb was smaller and more portable than the American hydrogen bomb, so its development once again upped the ante in the dangerous nuclear arms race between the Cold War superpowers. On This Date In 1960 The Beatles invited Pete Best to become their drummer. Four days after hiring Best, the group left for Hamburg… On This Date In 1961 In an effort to stem the tide of refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government of East Germany began building the Berlin Wall to divide East and West Berlin. Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet bloc relations, and the wall itself came to symbolize the Cold War. On This Date In 1964 British author and journalist Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, the world’s most famous fictional spy, died of a heart attack at age 56 in Kent, England. Fleming’s series of novels about the debonair Agent 007, based in part on their dashing author’s real-life experiences, spawned one of the most lucrative film franchises in history. On This Date In 1964 Charlie Wilson, part of the gang who pulled off the 1963 Great Train Robbery, one of the biggest heists of its kind, escaped from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, England. Several men broke into the maximum-security facility to free Wilson, who remained on the loose until 1968. On This Date In 1973 American golfer Jack Nicklaus won the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) championship for his 14th major title, surpassing Bobby Jones’ record of 13 major championships. Nicklaus shot a seven-under-par 277 at Canterbury Golf Club in Beachwood, Ohio, to win $45,000 and his third PGA National championship. The “Golden Bear” went on to win a total of 20 major tournaments, a record that still stands today. On This Date In 1974 “Harry and Tonto”, a drama film directed by Paul Mazursky and starring Art Carney as Harry Coombes, an elderly widower who is forced from his condemned New York City apartment against his will, was released. On This Date In 1978 Oakland Raiders free safety Jack Tatum leveled New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley with a helmet-to-helmet hit in a preseason game, leaving Stingley paralyzed for life. Despite the sport’s hard hits and reputation for roughness, this was the first and only time a player was permanently paralyzed as a result of an injury sustained in a National Football League game. (Mine: really? (in an NFL game…)) On This Date In 1985 Japan Airlines Flight 123, a Japan Airlines Boeing 747-SR46 domestic flight from Tokyo International Airport to Osaka International Airport, suffered mechanical failures 12 minutes into the flight and 32 minutes later crashed into Mount Osutaka. All 15 crew members and 505 out of 509 passengers died, resulting in a total of 520 deaths and 4 survivors. It remains the deadliest single-aircraft accident in history. On This Date In 1988 Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 - August 12, 1988), an American artist and the first African-American painter to become an international art star, died of mixed-drug toxicity at his 57 Great Jones Street loft/studio in New York, several days before what would have been Basquiat's second trip to the Côte d'Ivoire. He was just 27 years old. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoban-basquiat.html On This Date In 1988 “The Last Temptation of Christ”, a 1988 film directed by Martin Scorsese, was released. A film adaptation of the controversial 1960 novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis, it stars Willem Dafoe as Jesus Christ, Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot, Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene, David Bowie as Pontius Pilate, and Harry Dean Stanton as Paul. The film was shot entirely in Morocco. On This Date In 1988 Director Francis Ford Coppola’s critically acclaimed biopic “Tucker: The Man & His Dream” premiered in U.S. theaters, starring Jeff Bridges as the brash Chicago businessman-turned-car-designer Preston Tucker who shook up 1940s-era Detroit with his streamlined, affordable “Car of Tomorrow.” On This Date In 1990 Fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovered three huge bones jutting out of a cliff near Faith, South Dakota. They turn out to be part of the largest-ever Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, a 65 million-year-old specimen dubbed Sue, after its discoverer. On This Date In 1991 “Metallica” (also referred to as The Black Album), the fifth album by the American heavy metal band Metallica, was released through Elektra Records. The album features songs that are considered today as Metallica's most known tracks, and is the second best-selling album of the SoundScan era. On This Date In 1993 The 1993 PGA Championship, the 75th PGA Championship held from August 12-15, 1993 at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, was won by Paul Azinger. He won his first major championship on the second hole of a sudden death playoff with Greg Norman. Norman became the second golfer to lose playoffs in all four of golf’s major championships. On This Date In 1999 The 1999 PGA Championship, the 81st PGA Championship held from August 12–15 at the Medinah Country Club in Medinah, Illinois, was won by Tiger Woods. He won his first PGA Championship and second overall major by one stroke over 19-year old Sergio García. On This Date In 2000 The Russian Oscar II class submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea after an explosion. The investigation showed that a leak of hydrogen peroxide in a torpedo led to explosion of its fuel, causing the submarine to hit the bottom, which in turn triggered the detonation of further torpedo warheads about two minutes later. This second explosion was equivalent to about 2-3 tons of TNT, large enough to register on seismographs across Northern Europe. All 118 sailors and officers aboard the Kursk died. On This Date In 2003 Crestor, a member of a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs commonly referred to as “statins”, was approved in the U.S. by the FDA, based on review of an extensive clinical database involving approximately 12,000 patients. http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/DrugSafetyInformationforHeathcareProfessionals/PublicHealthAdvisories/ucm051756.htm On This Date In 2008 “A Little Bit Longer”, the third studio album by American pop-rock band the Jonas Brothers, was released. It was their second album released under Hollywood Records and managed under Sony/ATV Music Publishing. On This Date In 2008 “BBC Sessions and Other Polished Turds”, a compilation album by The Vandals, was released by Kung Fu Records. It was released as a digital download through iTunes and the band’s website, as well as on CD in Japan. On This Date In 2010 The federal jury in former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s federal corruption trial had reached a verdict on only two counts in the case, was deadlocked on others, and hadn’t even begun discussing 11 of the counts. U.S. District Judge James Zagel would further instruct the jury to continue deliberations. http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/blagojevich-on-trial/2010/08/blago-jury-has-verdict-on-2-counts-deadlocked-on-others.html
Hat tip to any included contributing sources, along with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page , http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history , http://timelines.com/

Happy Birthday George Soros (1930), William Goldman (1931), Mark Knopfler (1949), Bruce Greenwood (1956), Sir Mix-A-Lot (1963), Peter Krause (1965), Connie Mack IV (1967), Pete Sampras (1971), Casey Affleck (1975), Chris Chambers (1978), Steve Talley (1981), and Leah Pipes (1988).
RIP Robert Southey (1774 – 1843), Marion Lorne (1883 – 1968), Cantinflas (1911 – 1993), Samuel Fuller (1912 – 1997), Fulton Mackay (1922 – 1987), John Derek (1926 – 1998), Porter Wagoner (1927 – 2007), Buck Owens (1929 – 2006), John Cazale (1935 – 1978), and Deborah Walley (1941 – 2001).

Quotes
Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods. C.S. Lewis
The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything. Friedrich Nietzsche
If we can recognize that change and uncertainty are basic principles, we can greet the future and the transformation we are undergoing with the understanding that we do not know enough to be pessimistic. Hazel Henderson
There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart...pursue those. Michael Nolan
Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm. Charles Caleb Colton

Courtesy YouTube et al
NewsBusted 8/12/11 NewsBusted is a comedy webcast about the news of the day, uploaded every Tuesday and every Friday. Topics in today's show: --America headed for another recession
--Nearly 46 million Americans are now on food stamps
--Sen. Harry Reid called rise of Tea Party disconcerting
--Washington, D.C. started a bike sharing program for its citizens
--Tooth fairy pays kids an average of 40 cents less than last year
--For the first time since 1966, Jerry Lewis will not be on the Labor Day telethon
--Leonardo DiCaprio tops the list of highest paid actors
--Missouri teachers forbidden from friending students on Facebook

Britney Spears: I Wanna Go - Pianistmiri Official Music Video Piano Cover 'I Wanna Go' by Britney Spears is originally arranged & performed on piano by Pianistmiri. For more piano covers by Miri, please visit her YouTube Channel http://www.youtube.com/Sylphilharmonic or her website www.pianistmiri.com.

Colliding Galaxies Form Exclamation Point The Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured galaxies VV 340 North and VV340 South at the early stages of their merge, an interaction that will take millions of years. This cosmic punctuation mark is located about 450 million light years from Earth.


Great sentiments! I believe we are all a little cracked. Some of us are cracked on the surface - others of us are cracked to the core. Although the extent is individual, the remedy is so collective. We all search for that perfect glue that will hold us together. My perfect glue - the love and support of friends and family. Music that speaks to me and soothes my soul. A clever joke from my son that makes me giggle. A tender hug from my daughter. What is your perfect glue? Fawn Arrington