Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Aug. 21. Two exiled political leaders were assassinated on this date over 40 years apart. Exiled Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky was slain in Mexico City in 1940 on orders from Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. And in 1983, Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino was shot to death as he stepped off a plane at the Manila airport. His slaying fired opposition fires that eventually led to the downfall of longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Advertisement More than 1,700 people died and 500 more were injured when toxic gas bubbled from the depths of volcanic Lake Nios in the African nation of Cameroon and crept silently into the nearby villages. Many of those killed died in their sleep; others were felled in their tracks as they tried to flee the gas, which also wiped out animal and insect life. It was on this date in 1951 that the United States ordered construction of the world's first atomic submarine, the Nautilus. Back in 1831, slave Nat Turner, claiming to be God's choice to lead his people out of slavery, led a bloody revolt in Virginia, leading to the death of 60 white people. He later was hanged. Advertisement And, on this date in 1959, the 50th state -- Hawaii -- joined the union. We now return you to the present, already in progress.
