On this day: August 22
Teddy Roosevelt goes for a historic ride, tennis player Althea Gibson breaks racial barriers, The Supremes hit No. 1 for the first time and Nolan Ryan notches his 5,000 career strikeout, all on this day.
AD 565: St. Columba reports seeing a monster in Loch Ness, Scotland, which believers often point to as the first sighting of the Loch Ness Monster.
AD 565: St. Columba reports seeing a monster in Loch Ness, Scotland, which believers often point to as the first sighting of the Loch Ness Monster.
1864: Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention. The convention contained 10 articles, establishing for the first time legally binding rules guaranteeing neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers, field medical personnel, and specific humanitarian institutions in an armed conflict.
1893: Writer Dorothy Parker, best known for her poems and her sharp wit, is born Dorothy Rothschild in Long Branch, N.J. Among her best known works are the collections of poems "Enough Rope," "Sunset Gun" and "Death and Taxes." Parker, a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits, also briefly found success in Hollywood, earning two Academy Award nominations before her left-wing politics got her blacklisted in the 1950s. She died of a heart attack at the age of 73 on June 7, 1967, in New York City.
1902: The Cadillac Motor Company is founded by Henry Leland, a master mechanic and entrepreneur, who names the company after his ancestor, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, the founder of the city of Detroit. The company's crest is based on a coat of arms that Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac had created at the time of his marriage in Quebec in 1687. General Motors would purchase the company in 1909.
1902: Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first president of the United States to ride in an automobile in public, when he rides in a Columbia Electric Victoria Phaeton in Hartford, Conn.
1906: The Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, N.J., begins to manufacture the Victrola. The hand-cranked unit, with horn cabinet, sells for $200.
1920: Science fiction author Ray Bradbury, best known for books such as "Fahrenheit 451," "The Martian Chronicles" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes," is born in Waukegan, Ill. He's seen here in 1975.
1934: U.S. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who was commander of the Coalition Forces in the Gulf War of 1991, is born in Trenton, N.J.
1939: Baseball Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski, who played his entire 23-year baseball career with the Boston Red Sox, is born in Southampton, N.Y. He's seen here on April 8, 2011, throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before the Red Sox's home opener.
1941: Former NFL coach Bill Parcells, who won two Super Bowl rings with the New York Giants, defeating the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXI and the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV, is born in Englewood, N.J.
1947: Actress Cindy Williams ("American Graffiti," "Laverne & Shirley") is born in Van Nuys, Calif.
1950: Althea Gibson becomes the first black competitor to compete in an international tennis event, the national grass court championship tournament at Forest Hills, Long Island, N.Y., the precursor to today's U.S. Open.
1962: The French paramilitary group OAS unsuccessfully attempts to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle in Petit-Clamart, France. As de Gaulle's official limousine sped through the town it was met by submachine-gun fire. De Gaulle and his entourage, which included his wife, survive the attempt without any casualties or serious injuries.
1962: The NS Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered cargo ship, completes its maiden voyage.
1963: Singer-songwriter Tori Amos is born in Newton, N.C.
1964: The Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go" hits No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart. It was their first No. 1 single.
1968: Pope Paul VI arrives in Bogotá, Colombia. It is the first visit of a pope to Latin America.
1968: Ringo Starr quits The Beatles in disgust over the band's tensions and from boredom from sitting around waiting to contribute during sessions for the "White Album." He spends two weeks with Peter Sellers on the actor's yacht, where he writes "Octopus's Garden," but returns after two weeks at the urgings of the other Beatles.
1973: Actress and comedian Kristen Wiig ("Bridesmaids") is born in Canandaigua, N.Y.
1989: The first ring of Neptune is confirmed by the Voyager 2 space probe. The rings are shown here in a composite of two separate photos taken by the probe.
1989: Activist and Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton is gunned down at the age of 47 in Oakland, Calif. He's seen here on the right in the 1960s with Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale.
1989: Nolan Ryan strikes out Rickey Henderson to become the first major-league baseball pitcher to record 5,000 strikeouts. Following the game, Henderson was quoted as saying, "If he ain't struck you out, then you ain't nobody."
1990: The movie "Pump Up the Volume," starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis, premieres in theaters.
1992: FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shoots and kills Vicki Weaver during an 11-day siege at her home at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Weaver is seen here in a surveillance photograph from the day before.
1996: Bill Clinton signs welfare reform into law in the form of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, representing a major shift in U.S. welfare policy. T The bill, which was a cornerstone of the Republican Contract with America, added a workforce development component to welfare legislation, encouraging employment among the poor.
1998: "The Howard Stern Radio Show," a late-night Saturday night TV show designed to compete with NBC's "Saturday Night Live," premieres on CBS to about 70 percent of the U.S. The show would last three seasons and a total of 84 episodes before being canceled.
2003: Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended after refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a rock inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court building.
2004: A version of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway. Three men are eventually convicted in connection with the incident, but the paintings aren't recovered for more than two years.
2007: The Texas Rangers rout the Baltimore Orioles 30–3, the most runs scored by a team in modern MLB history (after 1900).
