08-17-2005, 05:58 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Maryland
Posts: 541,353
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August 17th
1601 ~ Birthday of Pierre de Fermat, Mathematician.
1786 ~ Birthday of Davy Crockett, Frontiersman, Soldier.
1807 ~ Robert Fulton's steamboat left New York City for Albany, New York, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
1863 ~ American Civil War: In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships bombard Confederate-held Fort Sumter.
1882 ~ Birthday of Samuel Goldwyn, Hollywood producer.
1911 ~ Birthday of Mikhail Botvinnik, World Chess Champion.
1962 ~ East German border guards killed 18-year-old Peter Fechter as he attempted to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin. Mr. Fecher was the first and the most famous of the victims of the Berlin Wall.
1970 ~ Venera program: Venera 7 was launched. It became the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet, Venus.
1980 ~ Azaria Chamberlain disappeared, likely taken by a dingo, leading to what was then the most publicised trial in Australian history and the most famous wrongful conviction when her parents were found guilty of murder.
1998 ~ Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admitted in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the same day he admitted before the nation that he "misled people" about his relationship.
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Eudaimonia
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