Today in History

Today in History Today is Friday, Aug. 20, the 232nd day of 2021. There are 133 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the ‘œPrague Spring’� liberalization drive. On this date: In 1862, the New York Tribune published an open letter by editor Horace Greeley calling on President Abraham Lincoln to take more aggressive measures to free the slaves and end the South’s rebellion. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, months after fighting had stopped. In 1882, Tchaikovsky’s ‘œ1812 Overture’� had its premiere in Moscow. In 1953, the Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb. In 1955, hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act, a nearly $1 billion anti-poverty measure. In 1979, swimmer Diana Nyad (NY’-ad) succeeded in her third attempt at swimming from the Bahamas to Florida. In 1986, postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill went on a deadly rampage at a post office in Edmond, Okla., shooting 14 fellow workers to death before killing himself. In 1988, a cease-fire in the war between Iraq and Iran went into effect. In 1989, fifty-one people died when a pleasure boat sank in the River Thames (tehmz) in London after colliding with a dredger. In 2017, actor, comic and longtime telethon host Jerry Lewis died of heart disease in Las Vegas at the age of 91. In 2019, President Donald Trump abruptly canceled an upcoming trip to Denmark, which owns Greenland, after the Danish prime minister dismissed the idea of the United States purchasing the mostly frozen island. Ten years ago: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il arrived in Russia’s Far East on a nearly weeklong visit. Jordyn Wieber won her first title at the U.S. gymnastics championships in St. Paul, Minnesota. Five years ago: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told a rally in Virginia that his party had to do a better job of appealing to African-American voters. At the Rio Games, the U.S. women’s basketball team won a sixth consecutive Olympic gold medal, routing Spain 101-72. Allyson Felix and LaShawn Merritt anchored the 4×400 relay teams to victory. One year ago: Accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden vowed to move the nation past the chaos of Donald Trump’s tenure and return it to its leadership role in the world; capping a virtual convention amid the pandemic, Biden spoke to a largely empty arena in Delaware. A federal judge cleared the way for a New York prosecutor to get President Donald Trump’s tax returns. Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was pulled from a yacht and arrested on charges that he and three associates ripped off donors trying to fund a southern border wall. (Trump, in his final hours in office, would pardon Bannon.) Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny became ill on a flight to Moscow from Siberia and was hospitalized in a coma. (Navalny would spend five months in Germany recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin; he was arrested after his return to Russia.) Officials announced a $600 million settlement between the state of Michigan and Flint residents who were harmed by lead-tainted water. The Minnesota Timberwolves won the NBA lottery giving them the first pick in the upcoming draft. (The Timberwolves would select Georgia shooting guard Anthony Edwards.)