On this day: August 30
The vacuum is invented, Ty Cobb makes his major-league debut, Bob Dylan releases "Highway 61 Revisited," and Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African-American justice on the Supreme Court, all on this day.
1797: Author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, best known for her Gothic novel "Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus," is born in Somers Town, London, England.
1797: Author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, best known for her Gothic novel "Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus," is born in Somers Town, London, England.
1800: Gabriel Prosser, a literate enslaved blacksmith, postpones a planned slave rebellion in Richmond, Va., but is arrested before he can make it happen. He and 25 followers are taken captive and hanged in punishment. In reaction, Virginia and other state legislatures would pass restrictions on free blacks, as well as prohibiting the education, assembly and hiring out of slaves, to restrict their chances to learn and to plan similar rebellions.
1813: In what will become known as the Fort Mims Massacre during the Creek War, a force of Creek people belonging to the "Red Sticks" faction kill more than 500 settlers (including more than 250 armed militia) in Fort Mims, north of Mobile, Ala.
1836: The city of Houston, Texas, is founded by New York real estate entrepreneurs Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen. The duo buy 6,642 acres of land along Buffalo Bayou and name their new city after Sam Houston, the popular general at the Battle of San Jacinto who was elected president of Texas in September 1836.
1901: A dust removing suction cleaner patent is filed by British engineer Hubert Cecil Booth. Before Booth introduced his version of the vacuum cleaner, cleaning machines blew or brushed dirt away, instead of sucking it up. All modern vacuums are based on Booth's principle. He later uses his invention to start up a mobile cleaning service, with his vacuum machine built on a horse-drawn cart with a long hose to extend into a house to be cleaned.
1905: Baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb makes his major-league debut with the Detroit Tigers. The 18-year-old Cobb doubles off the New York Highlanders's Jack Chesbro in his first at-bat.
1908: Actor Fred MacMurray ("Double Indemnity," "My Three Sons") is born in Kankakee, Ill.
1918: Russian political revolutionary Fanny Kaplan (pictured) shoots and seriously injures Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. This, along with the assassination of Bolshevik senior official Moisei Uritsky days earlier, prompts the decree for Red Terror, a campaign of mass arrests, executions and atrocities conducted by the Bolshevik government.
1918: Hall of Fame baseball player Ted Williams, who played his entire 22-year Major League Baseball career as the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox, is born in San Diego.
1919: Country singer Kitty Wells is born under the birth name Ellen Muriel Deason in Nashville, Tenn. Her 1952 hit recording, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," would make her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts, and transform her into the first female country star.
1930: American business magnate, investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett, who is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people, is born in Omaha, Neb.
1945: Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrives in Japan and sets up Allied occupation headquarters. Seen here with Emperor Hirohito, MacArthur and his staff would help Japan rebuild itself after World War II. The U.S. was firmly in control of Japan to oversee its reconstruction, and MacArthur was effectively the interim leader of Japan from 1945 until 1948.
1945: The Allied Control Council, which would govern Germany after World War II, comes into being. The council would issue a substantial number of laws, directives, orders and proclamations dealing with the abolition of Nazi laws and organizations, demilitarization and denazification.
1946: Actress Peggy Lipton ("The Mod Squad," "Twin Peaks") is born in New York City. She's seen here in 1968 in a promotional photo for "The Mod Squad."
1948: Comedian and actor Lewis Black ("The Daily Show," "Accepted") is born in Silver Spring, Md.
1963: Actor Michael Chiklis ("The Shield," "Fantastic Four") is born in Lowell, Mass.
1965: The album "Highway 61 Revisited" by Bob Dylan is released. The album, which features "Like a Rolling Stone," was Dylan's first backed almost entirely by an electric rock band, except for the closing 11-minute acoustic song, "Desolation Row."
1967: Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Marshall would served on the court for the next 24 years, compiling a liberal record that included strong support for Constitutional protection of individual rights, especially the rights of criminal suspects against the government.
1972: Actress Cameron Diaz ("There's Something About Mary," "Shrek," "Charlie's Angels") is born in San Diego.
1974: The football comedy "The Longest Yard," starring Burt Reynolds, opens in theaters. Reynolds plays Paul "Wrecking" Crewe, a former star pro football quarterback who is imprisoned and leads a team of inmates against the guards in a game of football.
1981: The Rolling Stones release their "Tattoo You" album, featuring the single "Start Me Up."
1982: Tennis player Andy Roddick, who won the 2003 U.S. Open and has appeared in four other Grand Slam finals, is born in Omaha, Neb.
1983: Guion S. Bluford Jr. becomes the first black American astronaut to travel in space, aboard the third flight of the space shuttle Challenger. This mission was also the first one to launch and land at night. By 1992, Bluford will have spent 688 hours on four space shuttle flights.
1984: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.
1994: Usher's self-titled debut album is released. The album would peak at No. 167 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and reach No. 25 on the R&B Albums chart.
1994: British band Oasis' first studio album, "Definitely Maybe," is released. The album becomes the fastest selling debut album of all time in the United Kingdom and sells more than eight million copies worldwide, including one million in the United States.
1995: NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces, which threatened and attacked United Nations-designated "safe areas" in Bosnia during the Bosnian War.
1997: Cynthia Cooper scores 25 points to lead the Houston Comets over the New York Liberty by a score of 65-51 in the first WNBA championship game. Cooper, who was named the finals MVP, would lead the Comets to the next three titles as well, earning finals MVP honors each year, before retiring following the 2000 championship (pictured).
2003: Actor Charles Bronson ("Death Wish," "The Magnificent Seven," "The Dirty Dozen") dies of pneumonia at the age of 81 in Los Angeles.
