TODAY IN HISTORY

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Today is Saturday, Aug. 15, the 228th day of 2020. There are 138 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On August 15, 1947, India became independent after some 200 years of British rule.

On this date:

In 1483, the Sistine Chapel was consecrated by Pope Sixtus IV.

In 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the island of Corsica.

In 1935, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory.

In 1939, the MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz” opened at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

In 1944, during World War II, Allied forces landed in southern France in Operation Dragoon.

In 1945, in a pre-recorded radio address, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced that his country had accepted terms of surrender for ending World War II.

In 1965, the Beatles played to a crowd of more than 55,000 at New York’s Shea Stadium.

In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon announced a 90-day freeze on wages, prices and rents.

In 2017, President Donald Trump, who’d faced harsh criticism for initially blaming the deadly weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia on “many sides,” told reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the confrontation and that groups protesting against the white supremacists were “also very violent.” (In between those statements, at the urging of aides, Trump had offered a more direct condemnation of white supremacists.)

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Abby Dalton is 88. Actor Lori Nelson is 87. Civil rights activist Vernon Jordan is 85. Actor Jim Dale is 85. Actor Pat Priest is 84. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is 82. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is 82. Musician Pete York (Spencer Davis Group) is 78. Author-journalist Linda Ellerbee is 76. Songwriter Jimmy Webb is 74. Rock singer-musician Tom Johnston (The Doobie Brothers) is 72. Actor Phyllis Smith is 71. Britain’s Princess Anne is 70.Actor-comedian Rondell Sheridan is 62.Philanthropist Melinda Gates is 56. Country singer Angela Rae (Wild Horses) is 54. Actor Peter Hermann is 53. Actor Debra Messing is 52. Actor Anthony Anderson is 50. Actor Ben Affleck is 48.

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