On this day: August 29
American troops march through a liberated Paris, the King of Pop is born, The Beatles perform their last concert before paying fans and Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Coast, all on this day.
1632: Philosopher John Locke, regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers, is born in Wrington, Somerset, England.
1632: Philosopher John Locke, regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers, is born in Wrington, Somerset, England.
1786: Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high debt and tax burdens. The uprising, named for Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and one of the rebel leaders, is ultimately unsuccessful, although scattered resistance continues until June 1787.
1831: Using his "induction ring," an iron ring wrapped two insulated coils of wire, English scientist Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction: the "induction" or generation of electricity in a wire by means of the electromagnetic effect of a current in another wire. The induction ring is the first electric transformer.
1869: The Mount Washington Cog Railway opens in New Hampshire, making it the world's first mountain-climbing rack-and-pinion railway.
1876: Inventor Charles F. Kettering is born in Loudonville, Ohio. Among his most widely used automotive inventions are the electrical starting motor and leaded gasoline. In association with the DuPont Chemical Company, he was also responsible for the invention of Freon refrigerant for refrigeration and air conditioning systems.
1877: Western settler Brigham Young, who founded Salt Lake City, Utah, as the leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dies of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix at the age of 76 in Salt Lake City.
1885: Gottlieb Daimler patents the world's first internal combustion motorcycle, the Reitwagen.
1893: U.S. patent No. 504,038 is issued to Whitcomb L. Judson for a "Zipper Clasp Locker or Unlocker for Shoes." Although he's not the first to patent a zipper-like device, he is the first to market it and is therefore often credited with inventing the zipper.
1898: The Goodyear tire company is founded by Frank Seiberling in Akron, Ohio. The first factory has 13 employees manufacturing bicycle and carriage tires, rubber horseshoe pads and poker chips. The company grows with the advent of the automobile.
1898: Screenwriter and director Preston Sturges ("The Great McGinty," "Sullivan's Travels," "The Lady Eve") is born in Chicago.
1907: The Quebec Bridge crossing the lower Saint Lawrence River to the west of Quebec City collapses during construction, killing 75 workers and making it the world's worst bridge construction disaster.
1911: Ishi, widely acclaimed in his time as the "last wild Indian" in America to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California after the deaths of his mother and last relatives. The last member of the Yahi, Ishi had spent most of his life in hiding with his tribe members in the Sierra wilderness. Professors from the University of California, Berkeley, read about him and bring him to San Francisco both for study and for his protection. He lives there until his death in 1916.
1915: U.S. Navy salvage divers raise the USS F-4, the first commissioned submarine of the U.S. Navy to be lost at sea. The sub was lost in an accident while on a training mission near Honolulu on March 25, 1915.
1915: Actress Ingrid Bergman ("Casablanca," "Notorious") is born in Stockholm, Sweden.
1920: Jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker, also known by his nicknames of "Yardbird" and "Bird," is born in Kansas City, Kan.
1922: The first radio advertisement is broadcast on WEAF-AM in New York City. The ad, actually a roughly 10-minute long talk anticipating today's radio and television infomercials, promotes an apartment development.
1922: Fashion critic Richard Blackwell, known just as Mr. Blackwell, is born under the birth name Richard Sylvan Selzer in Brooklyn Heights, N.Y.
1923: Film director and actor Richard Attenborough ("Ghandi," "The Great Escape," ) is born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England.
1935: Film director William Friedkin ("The French Connection," "The Exorcist") is born in Chicago.
1936: U.S. Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and the Republican Party's presidential candidate in 2008, is born on the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone.
1938: Actor Elliott Gould ("M*A*S*H," "Ocean's Eleven") is born in Brooklyn, N.Y.
1944: The Slovak National Uprising begins as 60,000 Slovak troops turn against the Nazis and the collaborationist Slovak State of Jozef Tiso during World War II.
1944: American troops march down the Champs Elysees in Paris as the French capital continues to celebrate its liberation from the Nazis during World War II.
1949: The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. With the success of this test, the Soviet Union becomes the second nation after the United States to have successfully developed and conducted nuclear tests.
1958: The United States Air Force Academy moves to its present site near Colorado Springs, Colo. The academy had previously opened on July 11, 1955, at a temporary site at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver.
1958: Pop singer Michael Jackson is born in Gary, Ind. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he would debut on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964, and begin his solo career in 1971. With a career that lasted more than four decades featuring contributions to music, dance and fashion, he is recognized by Guinness World Records as the most successful entertainer of all time.
1962: President John F. Kennedy fields a press-conference question on the dangerous long-range side effects of DDT and other pesticides. Kennedy acknowledges Rachel Carson's ground-breaking environmental book "Silent Spring" in his response and states that the government was taking a closer look at the issue. Eventually, DDT is banned in the United States.
1964: Roy Orbison's single "Pretty Woman" is released. The track quickly rises to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, claiming the No. 1 position by Sept. 26, 1964. The single would go on to sell more than seven million copies since its release.
1965: The Gemini V spacecraft returns to Earth, landing in the Atlantic ocean. The mission doubled the U.S space-flight record of the Gemini 4 mission to eight days. This was crucial because the length of time it took to fly to the moon, land and return would take eight days. Here astronaut L. Gordon Cooper Jr. is being hoisted up to a Navy helicopter during recovery operations in the Atlantic Ocean.
1966: The Beatles perform their last concert before paying fans at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. After their 14-date tour wraps up, they become a studio band and focus exclusively on record production.
1967: The final TV episode of "Fugitive" airs as the second part of a two-part finale. The finale is the most-watched television series episode at that time, with more than 78 million people tuning in to see if Dr. Richard Kimble would finally catch up with the "one-armed man" who killed his wife.
1968: The first U.S. Open tennis match takes place with Billie Jean King defeating Long Island dentist Dr. Vija Vuskains 6-1, 6-0.
1977: Three people are arrested in Memphis after trying to steal Elvis Presley's body from the Forest Hill Cemetery. As a result, the remains of both Presley and his mother would be reburied in Graceland's Meditation Garden (pictured) on Oct. 2, 1977.
1977: At Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals brings his career total of stolen bases to 893, beating a record held by Ty Cobb for 49 years.
1982: Actress Ingrid Bergman ("Casablanca," "Notorious") dies on her 67th birthday in London, England, following a long battle with breast cancer.
1986: Actress and singer Lea Michele ("Glee," "New Year's Eve") is born in The Bronx, N.Y.
1987: Actor and World War II Marine Corps veteran Lee Marvin ("Cat Ballou," "The Dirty Dozen," "The Wild Bunch") dies from a heart attack at age 63 in Tucson, Ariz.
1990: Elton John checks into a rehab center in Chicago for treatment of bulimia and addiction to drugs and alcohol.
1991: The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the country's highest legislative body, suspends all activities of the Soviet Communist Party, dissolving the political party.
2005: Hurricane Katrina makes landfall as a Category 3 hurricane in southeast Louisiana. Katrina would go on to devastate much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing more than $80 billion in damage. The most significant number of deaths occur in New Orleans, which floods as the levee system catastrophically fails, in many cases hours after the storm has moved inland.
2008: Republican presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain introduces Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate during a rally in Dayton, Ohio.
