On this day: August 14
The license plate and Social Security are born, basketball makes a muddy Olympic debut, a classic backyard kids toy is invented, and the Oklahoma City bomber is sentenced to death, all on this day.
1848: The Oregon Territory is organized by act of the United States Congress with Oregon City, Ore., as its capital. The territory encompasses all of the present-day states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington, as well as those parts of present day Montana and Wyoming west of the Continental Divide.
1848: The Oregon Territory is organized by act of the United States Congress with Oregon City, Ore., as its capital. The territory encompasses all of the present-day states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington, as well as those parts of present day Montana and Wyoming west of the Continental Divide.
1851: Doc Holliday, American gambler, gunfighter and dentist who played a part in the Earp family's shootout at the O.K. Coral in Tombstone, Ariz., is born in Griffin, Ga.
1885: The first seven patents under the Japan's recently established Patent Monopoly Act are granted, with Hotta Zuisho obtaining Japanese Patent No. 1 for a rust-proof paint. Takabayashi Kenzo obtains Patent No. 2–4 for tea processing machines.
1893: France becomes the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration with the passage of the Paris Police Ordinance, which stated: "Each motor vehicle shall bear on a metal plate and in legible writing the name and address of its owner, also the distinctive number used in the application for authorization. This plate shall be placed at the left-hand side of the vehicle -- it shall never be hidden."
1935: The United States Social Security Act is signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, creating a government pension system for the retired.
1936: Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Ky., in the last public execution in the United States. Bethea, who was a black man, confessed to the rape and murder of a 70-year-old white woman named Lischia Edwards. Mistakes in performing the hanging and the surrounding media circus contributed to the end of public executions in the United States.
1936: The first Olympic basketball gold medal game is held at the Summer Games in Berlin, Germany. The U.S. defeats Canada, 19-8, in game played outdoors on a dirt court in a driving rain. Due to the quagmire, the teams could not dribble and the score was held to a minimum. The medals, which included a bronze for Mexico for defeating Poland 26-12, were awarded by James Naismith, founder of basketball.
1941: Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt sign the Atlantic Charter, which defined the Allied goals for World War II for the Allies. The stated ideal goals included: no territorial aggrandizement; no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people; restoration of self-government to those deprived of it; free access to raw materials; reduction of trade restrictions; global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations.
1941: Singer-songwriter David Crosby, a founding member of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash, is born in Los Angeles.
1945: Actor and comedian Steve Martin ("The Jerk," "Father of the Bride," "Parenthood") is born in Waco, Texas.
1947: Romance novelist Danielle Steel is born in New York City.
1951: American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst dies at the age of 88 in Beverly Hills, Calif.
1953: The Wiffle ball is invented by David N. Mullany at his home in Fairfield, Conn., when he designs a ball that curves easily for his 12-year-old son.
1959: The American Football League conducts its first official meeting in Chicago and charter memberships are given to Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles and Minneapolis-Saint Paul (although the Minnesota ownership group never fielded an AFL team, instead choosing an offer to join the NFL in 1961). The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence, until the two leagues merged in 1969.
1959: Retired Los Angeles Lakers superstar Magic Johnson is born in Lansing, Mich.
1966: Actress Halle Berry ("Monster's Ball," "X-Men") is born in Cleveland.
1971: Rod Stewart solo debut single "Maggie May" hits the charts. The song was originally the B-side to "Reason to Believe," but DJs became fonder of the B-side and, after two weeks on the charts, the song was reclassified, with "Maggie May" becoming the A-side.
1976: The Steve Miller Band's "Rock'n Me" enters the Hot 100 chart at No. 85. Twelve weeks later it would become Miller's second No. 1 single, after "The Joker" in early 1974.
1983: Actress Mila Kunis ("The Black Swan," "Forgetting Sarah Marshall") is born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.
1987: NFL quarterback and 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow is born in Makati City, Philippines, to American parents who were serving as Baptist missionaries at the time.
1994: Political terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, also known as "Carlos the Jackal," is captured. He is charged with the 1975 murders of two Paris policemen and of his Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine contact and eventually found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. While in prison he would be further convicted of attacks in France that killed 11 and injured 150 people and sentenced to an additional life term.
1997: An unrepentant Timothy McVeigh is sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing. He would be executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind.
2009: Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a Charles Manson follower who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975, is released from a Texas prison hospital after more than three decades behind bars.
