On This Day:
Sunday August 28, 2011
This is the 240th day of the year, with 125 days
remaining in 2011.
Fact of the Day: volcano
"A volcano is an opening in the earth from which molten rock
and gas erupts. The molten rock (magma) forms a hill or
mountain around the opening and the burning gas, ash, and
hot lava may explode out or pour down the sides. The
explosion of a volcano is called an eruption and can do much
damage, as seen in Pompeii and Washington state's Mount St.
Helens. There are about 800 places in the world where
volcanoes are active, including 80 below the sea. There are
belts were there are volcanoes, including one large one
circling the Pacific Ocean and others running east-west in
Indonesia and the Mediterranean Sea. The materials deep
underground move around and push up to the mouth of the
volcano. The theory of plate tectonics says that huge plates
of material making up the Earth's crust shift and volcanoes
erupt where the plates meet and push together. Some can be
dormant for years and then suddenly erupt. Others become
extinct. Mauna Loa in Hawaii is the world's largest volcano.
Th e study of volcanoes is called volcanology. Krakatoa, the
Indonesian volcanic island that exploded in 1883, was heard
3000 miles away, created tidal waves 120 feet high, and
hurled five cubic miles of earth fragments into the air -
some to the height of 50 miles."
Holidays
Feast Day of St. Augustine of Hippo, S.t Alexander of
Constantinople, St. Edmund Arrowsmith, St. Julian of
Brioude, and St. Moses of Abyssinia.
Scotland:
Lammas Term.
Events
1609
- Henry
Hudson discovered Delaware
Bay.
1917
- Ten suffragists were arrested when they picketed the White
House.
1922
- The first-ever radio commercial aired on station WEAF in New
York City, for the Queensboro Realty Company.
1963
- A peaceful civil rights rally took place in Washington,
D.C. where Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech
to more than 200,000 people.
1968
- Police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets
of Chicago
as the Democratic
National Convention nominated Hubert
H. Humphrey for president. In the convention's
aftermath, a federal commission investigating the convention
described the confrontation as a "police riot" and blamed Chicago
Mayor Richard
Daley for inciting his police to violence.
1996
- The troubled 15-year marriage of Britain's Prince
Charles and Princess
Diana officially ended with the issuing of a divorce
decree.
2000
- The New
York Stock Exchange began listing the prices of seven
stocks in dollars and cents; previously all stock was listed
in fractions.
2005
- An evacuation is ordered by New
Orleans, Louisiana
mayor Ray
Nagin and Louisiana governor Kathleen
Blanco as Hurricane
Katrina moves closer to Louisiana.
Births
1749
- Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, German author.
1774
- Mother Elizabeth
Ann Seton, first American-born saint.
1828
- Leo
Tolstoy, Russian novelist.
1877
- Charles
Stewart Rolls, English motorist, aviator, founder of Rolls-Royce
Ltd.
1908
- Roger
Tory Peterson, American ornithologist,
conservationist.
1917
- Jack
Kirby (Born Jacob Kurtzberg), American comic
book artist.
1924
- Janet
Frame, New
Zealand author.
1925
- Donald
O'Connor (born Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor),
American singer, dancer, and actor.
1938
- Paul
Martin, 21st Prime
Minister of Canada.
1965
- Shania
Twain (born Eilleen Regina Edwards), Canadian singer.
1969
- Jack
Black (born Thomas Jack Black, Jr.), American actor.
1969
- Jason
Priestley, Canadian actor.
Deaths
1955
- Emmett
Till, American civil rights movement icon.
1987
- John
Huston, American film director.
1989
- Joseph
Alsop, an American journalist and syndicated newspaper
columnist from the 1930s through the 1970s.
2006
- Melvin
Schwartz, American physicist, and Nobel
Prize laureate.
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