On This Day in History - August 31st - Almanac

Today is Monday, Aug. 31, the 244th day of 2020 with 122 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include Roman Emperor Caligula in A.D. 12; Italian educator Maria Montessori in 1870; comedian Buddy Hackett in 1924; actor James Coburn in 1928; baseball Hall of Fame member Frank Robinson, first African American to manage a Major League Baseball team, in 1935; black militant Eldridge Cleaver in 1935; violinist Itzhak Perlman in 1945 (age 75); musician Van Morrison in 1945 (age 75); musician Bob Welch in 1945; actor Richard Gere in 1949 (age 71); prosecutor Marcia Clark in 1953 (age 67); Olympic track star Edwin Moses in 1955 (age 65); Jordanian Queen Rania in 1970 (age 50); singer/actor Debbie Gibson in 1970 (age 50); actor Chris Tucker in 1971 (age 49); actor Sara Ramirez in 1975 (age 45); actor Shar Jackson in 1976 (age 44); actor Yara Martinez in 1979 (age 41); Olympic gold medal skier Ted Ligety in 1984 (age 36); actor Ryan Kelley in 1986 (age 34).

On this date in history:

In 1897, Thomas Edison was awarded a patent for his movie camera, the Kinetograph.

In 1888, prostitute Mary Ann Nichols became the first reported victim of the London serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper."

In 1903, a Packard automobile completed a 52-day journey from San Francisco to New York, becoming the first car to cross the nation under its own power.

In 1955, William G. Cobb demonstrated the first solar car, a miniature he dubbed the sunmobile, at the General Motors car show in Chicago.

In 1986, an Aeromexico DC-9 collided with a single-engine plane over Cerritos, Calif., killing 82 people, including 15 on the ground.

In 1997, Britain's Princess Diana died of injuries following a car accident in Paris that also killed her companion, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul.

In 2003, a Russian K-159 nuclear-powered submarine was lost in the Barents Sea, claiming the lives of nine of its 10-member crew. Russian authorities blamed negligence by navy officials.

In 2005, close to 1,000 people, most of whom were Shiite pilgrims, died in a stampede and the partial collapse of a bridge over the Tigris River in northern Baghdad.

In 2006, Norwegian police recovered The Scream and Madonna, paintings by artist Edvard Munch that had been stolen two years before from the Munch Museum in Oslo.

In 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the end of the American combat mission in Iraq, seven years after the war began.

In 2015, President Barack Obama renamed Mount McKinley to Denali, the traditional native name of North America's highest peak.

In 2016, Brazil's Federal Senate voted 61-20 in favor of removing Dilma Rousseff from the presidency over accusations she broke budget laws. Vice President Michel Temer became acting president.

In 2019, the U.S. military conducted a missile strike against al-Qaida in Syria's Idlib province, killing dozens.

A thought for the day: "I can't hate for long. It isn't worth it." -- Armenian-American writer William Saroyan