Today in History: August 16, American music loses two legends
FILE-- Elvis Presley is shown in this undated file photo. (AP photo, file); FILE--Aretha Franklin poses while attending the Broadway show “Hairspray,” on March 23, 2007 in New York. (AP Photo/Shiho Fukada)
Today in history:
On Aug. 16, 1977, Elvis Presley died at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee at the age of 42; forty-one years later, in 2018, singer Aretha Franklin, known as the “Queen of Soul,” died in Detroit at the age of 76.
Also on this date:
In 1777, American forces won the Battle of Bennington in what was considered a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
In 1812, Detroit fell to British and Native American forces in the War of 1812.
In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation 86, which prohibited the states of the Union from engaging in commercial trade with states that were in rebellion — i.e., the Confederacy.
In 1896, gold was discovered in Canada’s Yukon Territory, sparking the “Klondike Fever” that would draw tens of thousands to the region in search of fortune.
FILE - In this June 13, 1948 file photo, home run king Babe Ruth bows as he acknowledges the cheers of thousands of fans at Yankee Stadium in New York who saw his number 3 retired permanently by the team. His 60 homers for the Yankees in 1927 stood as the season record until Roger Maris topped it in 1961. (AP Photo/Harry Harris, File)
FILE - In this June 13, 1948 file photo, home run king Babe Ruth bows as he acknowledges the cheers of thousands of fans at Yankee Stadium in New York who saw his number 3 retired permanently by the team. His 60 homers for the Yankees in 1927 stood as the season record until Roger Maris topped it in 1961. (AP Photo/Harry Harris, File)
In 1948, baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York at age 53.
In 1954, the first issue of “Sports Illustrated” was released.
In 1962, the Beatles fired their original drummer, Pete Best, replacing him with Ringo Starr.
In 1978, James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., told a Capitol Hill hearing he did not commit the crime, saying he’d been set up by a mysterious man called “Raoul.”
Celebrants raise their hands as the sun rises over the northwestern New Mexico landscape near Chaco Canyon, N.M., Aug. 16, 1987. About a thousand people participated in various activities, part of the “harmonic convergence” including chanting, prayer and meditation. (AP Photo/David Breslauer)
Celebrants raise their hands as the sun rises over the northwestern New Mexico landscape near Chaco Canyon, N.M., Aug. 16, 1987. About a thousand people participated in various activities, part of the “harmonic convergence” including chanting, prayer and meditation. (AP Photo/David Breslauer)
In 1987, people worldwide began a two-day celebration of the “Harmonic Convergence,” which heralded what believers called the start of a new, purer age of humankind.
In 2014, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, where police and protesters repeatedly clashed in the week since a Black 18-year-old, Michael Brown, was shot to death by a white police officer.
FILE - In this Sept. 17, 2020, file photo, an air tanker prepares to drop retardant while battling the August Complex Fire in the Mendocino National Forest, Calif. The staggering scale of California’s wildfires has reached another milestone. The new mark for the August Complex Fire in the Coast Range between San Francisco and the Oregon state line on Monday, Oct. 5, 2020, surpassed 1 million acres. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 17, 2020, file photo, an air tanker prepares to drop retardant while battling the August Complex Fire in the Mendocino National Forest, Calif. The staggering scale of California’s wildfires has reached another milestone. The new mark for the August Complex Fire in the Coast Range between San Francisco and the Oregon state line on Monday, Oct. 5, 2020, surpassed 1 million acres. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
In 2020, lightning sparked the August Complex wildfire in California. Over 1,600 square miles—greater than the size of Rhode Island—would burn over the following three months.
