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Aug. 21, 1986: Volcanic Lake Explodes, Killing Thousands: “

SCIENCE  :  DISCOVERIES  
Aug. 21, 1986: Volcanic Lake Explodes, Killing Thousands
By Randy Alfred 7 Hours Ago

The waters of Lake Nyos, Cameroon, turned a murky brown following a deadly release of toxic gas in August 1986.
Photo: Thierry Orban/Corbis Sygma
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1986: A deadly cloud of carbon dioxide sweeps down the slopes of an African volcano, smothering more than 1,700 people.
Volcanoes can kill in many ways, but this one is pretty weird. A volcanic lake in the West African nation of Cameroon degassed violently (you could say it burped, or worse) in the middle of the night. Carbon dioxide is odorless and heavier than air. Most of the victims died in their sleep.
Lake Nyos sits in the crater of a volcano that hadn’t erupted in centuries … and probably didn’t actually erupt the night of Aug. 21, 1986.
Magma deep underneath the lake releases carbon dioxide into its depths. Lake Nyos is 690-feet deep, enough for the water pressure to keep the CO2 dissolved in the “

(Via .)

from Wired…

1850: Florida physician John Gorrie uses his mechanical ice-maker to astonish the guests at a party. It’s America’s first public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration.

William Cullen had demonstrated the principle of artificial refrigeration in a University of Glasgow laboratory in 1748, by allowing ethyl ether to boil into a vacuum. American Oliver Evans designed in 1805 — but never built — a refrigeration machine that used vapor instead of liquid. Jacob Perkins used Evans’ concept for an experimental volatile-liquid, closed-cycle compressor in 1834.

from The History Channel…

1925 : Monkey Trial begins

In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called “Monkey Trial” begins with John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.

The law, which had been passed in March, made it a misdemeanor punishable by fine to “teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” With local businessman George Rappalyea, Scopes had conspired to get charged with this violation, and after his arrest the pair enlisted the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to organize a defense. Hearing of this coordinated attack on Christian fundamentalism, William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate and a fundamentalist hero, volunteered to assist the prosecution. Soon after, the great attorney Clarence Darrow agreed to join the ACLU in the defense, and the stage was set for one of the most famous trials in U.S. history.

from The History Channel…

1930 : Building of Hoover Dam begins

On this day in 1930, construction of the Hoover Dam begins. Over the next five years, a total of 21,000 men would work ceaselessly to produce what would be the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest manmade structures in the world.

Although the dam would take only five years to build, its construction was nearly 30 years in the making. Arthur Powell Davis, an engineer from the Bureau of Reclamation, originally had his vision for the Hoover Dam back in 1902, and his engineering report on the topic became the guiding document when plans were finally made to begin the dam in 1922.

from The History Channel…

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone wih the Wind, one of the best-selling novels of all time and the basis for a blockbuster 1939 movie, is published on this day in 1936.

In 1926, Mitchell was forced to quit her job as a reporter at the Atlanta Journal to recover from a series of physical injuries. With too much time on her hands, Mitchell soon grew restless. Working on a Remington typewriter, a gift from her second husband, John R. Marsh, in their cramped one-bedroom apartment, Mitchell began telling the story of an Atlanta belle named Pansy O’Hara.

from The History Channel…

1995 : U.S. space shuttle docks with Russian space station

On this day in 1995, the American space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir to form the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.

This historic moment of cooperation between former rival space programs was also the 100th human space mission in American history. At the time, Daniel Goldin, chief of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), called it the beginning of “a new era of friendship and cooperation” between the U.S. and Russia. With millions of viewers watching on television, Atlantis blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in eastern Florida on June 27, 1995.

from The History Channel…

1987 : Reagan challenges Gorbachev

On this day in 1987, in one of his most famous Cold War speeches, President Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, a symbol of the repressive Communist era in a divided Germany.

from The History Channel…

1968 : Robert F. Kennedy shot

At 12:50 a.m. PDT, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a presidential candidate, is shot three times in a hail of gunfire in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Five others were wounded. The senator had just completed a speech celebrating his victory in the California presidential primary. The shooter, Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan, had a smoking .22 revolver wrested from his grip and was promptly arrested. Kennedy, critically wounded, was rushed to the hospital, where he fought for his life for the next 24 hours. On the morning of June 6, he died. He was 42 years old. On June 8, Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, also the final resting place of his assassinated older brother, President John F. Kennedy.

from the History Channel…

1859 : Big Ben goes into operation in London

The famous tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top of the 320-foot-high St. Stephen’s Tower, rings out over the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, for the first time on this day in 1859.

from The History Channel…

1431 : Joan of Arc martyred

At Rouen in English-controlled Normandy, Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for heresy.

from the History Channel…

On May 27, 1941, the British navy sinks the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic near France. The German death toll was more than 2,000.

On February 14, 1939, the 823-foot Bismarck was launched at Hamburg. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler hoped that the state-of-the-art battleship would herald the rebirth of the German surface battle fleet. However, after the outbreak of war, Britain closely guarded ocean routes from Germany to the Atlantic Ocean, and only U-boats moved freely through the war zone.

from The History Channel…

On this day in 1934, notorious criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are shot to death by Texas and Louisiana state police while driving a stolen car near Sailes, Louisiana.

Bonnie Parker met the charismatic Clyde Barrow in Texas when she was 19 years old and her husband (she married when she was 16) was serving time in jail for murder. Shortly after they met, Barrow was imprisoned for robbery. Parker visited him every day, and smuggled a gun into prison to help him escape, but he was soon caught in Ohio and sent back to jail. When Barrow was paroled in 1932, he immediately hooked up with Parker, and the couple began a life of crime together.

from The History Channel…

A massive wagon train, made up of 1,000 settlers and 1,000 head of cattle, sets off down the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri. Known as the “Great Emigration,” the expedition came two years after the first modest party of settlers made the long, overland journey to Oregon.

from The History Channel…

In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International Red Cross.

Barton, born in Massachusetts in 1821, worked with the sick and wounded during the American Civil War and became known as the “Angel of the Battlefield” for her tireless dedication. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln commissioned her to search for lost prisoners of war, and with the extensive records she had compiled during the war she succeeded in identifying thousands of the Union dead at the Andersonville prisoner-of-war camp.

from the History Channel…

1873 : Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive patent for blue jeans

On this day in 1873, San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world’s most famous garments: blue jeans.

Born Loeb Strauss in Buttenheim, Bavaria, in 1829, the young Strauss immigrated to New York with his family in 1847 after the death of his father. By 1850, Loeb had changed his name to Levi and was working in the family dry goods business, J. Strauss Brother & Co. In early 1853, Levi Strauss went west to seek his fortune during the heady days of the Gold Rush.

from The History Channel…

May 16, 1929
First Academy Awards presented

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out its first awards, at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. The awards were for films that had opened between August 1, 1927 and July 31, 1928. The Best Picture award went to Wings, starring Clara Bow and Gary Cooper. Emil Jannings won the Best Actor award for The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh.

via the History Channel…

1937 : Madeleine Albright is born
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihVideoCategory&id=52701
1756 : The Seven Years War begins
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5002
1941 : First Allied jet flies
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6898
1963 : The flight of Faith 7
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5003
1972 : Governor George Wallace shot
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5004

American Revolution
1781 : Continentals capture Fort Granby, South Carolina
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=623

Automotive
1918 : Nantucket lifts car ban
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=7426
1981 : 20,000,000th Bug produced
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=7425

Civil War
1862 : Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=2030
1864 : Battle of New Market, Virginia
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=2029

Cold War
1988 : Soviets begin withdrawal from Afghanistan
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=2668

Crime
1976 : A young woman and her married lover kill her family
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=1003

Disaster
1896 : Tornado decimates Texas town
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=592

Entertainment
1958 : Gigi premieres
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=3274
1964 : The Smothers Brothers debut
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=3273
1970 : The Carpenters release Close to You
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=3275

Literary
1890 : Katherine Anne Porter is born
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=3970

Old West
1856 : Second vigilante committee organizes in San Francisco
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4521

Presidential
1800 : President John Adams orders federal government to Washington, D.C.
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=529
1942 : Ronald Reagan applies for transfer to Army Air Force
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=528

Sports
1973 : Nolan Ryan pitches first no-hitter
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=57055

Vietnam War
1967 : U.S. positions south of the DMZ come under heavy fire
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=1878
1970 : Air Force sergeant awarded Medal of Honor
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=1879

Wall Street
1882 : President Arthur investigates tariffs
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5866

World War I
1916 : Austrians launch massive offensive on Trentino Front
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=561

World War II
1942 : Legislation creating the Women’s Army Corps becomes law
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6454

from the History Channel…

1804 : Lewis and Clark depart

One year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition leaves St. Louis, Missouri, on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.

Even before the U.S. government concluded purchase negotiations with France, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned his private secretary Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, an army captain, to lead an expedition into what is now the U.S. Northwest. On May 14, the “Corps of Discovery”–featuring approximately 45 men (although only an approximate 33 men would make the full journey)–left St. Louis for the American interior.

The expedition traveled up the Missouri River in a 55-foot long keelboat and two smaller boats. In November, Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian fur trader accompanied by his young Native American wife Sacagawea, joined the expedition as an interpreter. The group wintered in present-day North Dakota before crossing into present-day Montana, where they first saw the Rocky Mountains. On the other side of the Continental Divide, they were met by Sacagawea’s tribe, the Shoshone Indians, who sold them horses for their journey down through the Bitterroot Mountains. After passing through the dangerous rapids of the Clearwater and Snake rivers in canoes, the explorers reached the calm of the Columbia River, which led them to the sea. On November 8, 1805, the expedition arrived at the Pacific Ocean, the first European explorers to do so by an overland route from the east. After pausing there for the winter, the explorers began their long journey back to St. Louis.

On September 23, 1806, after almost two and a half years, the expedition returned to the city, bringing back a wealth of information about the largely unexplored region, as well as valuable U.S. claims to Oregon Territory.

With all of the illegals, who really won?

from The History Channel…

On May 13, 1846, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly votes in favor of President James K. Polk’s request to declare war on Mexico in a dispute over Texas.

Under the threat of war, the United States had refrained from annexing Texas after the latter won independence from Mexico in 1836. But in 1844, President John Tyler restarted negotiations with the Republic of Texas, culminating with a Treaty of Annexation.

via Wired…

1941: German engineer Konrad Zuse unveils the Z3, now generally recognized as the first fully functional, programmable computer.

Because Zuse designed and built his computer inside Nazi Germany, which was already at war, his achievement went unnoticed outside Germany until after the Third Reich’s collapse. In the meantime, the Harvard Mark 1, a computer produced by an American team, appeared in 1944 and is still occasionally cited as the first of its kind.

Complicating Zuse’s claim of priority, an air raid destroyed his computer, as well as all accompanying photographs and documentation. Zuse rebuilt the Z3 15 years after the war ended, to demonstrate its capabilities and to establish his claim to the patents associated with the machine.

The Z3, Zuse’s third computer in a series of four, used the simple binary system for performing complicated mathematical computations — its outstanding feature.