Today, August 16, marks the anniversary of several significant historical events. In 1977, American music legend Elvis Presley died at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 42. Forty-one years later, in 2018, singer Aretha Franklin, known as the “Queen of Soul,” died in Detroit at the age of 76.
Other Historical Events
On this day in history, American forces won the Battle of Bennington in 1777, considered a turning point of the Revolutionary War. In 1812, Detroit fell to British and Native American forces in the War of 1812. President Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation 86 in 1861, prohibiting the states of the Union from engaging in commercial trade with states that were in rebellion, i.e., the Confederacy.
In 1948, baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York at age 53. The first issue of “Sports Illustrated” was released in 1954. The Beatles fired their original drummer, Pete Best, replacing him with Ringo Starr in 1962. James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., told a Capitol Hill hearing he did not commit the crime in 1978.
In 2014, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, where police and protesters repeatedly clashed in the week after a Black 18-year-old, Michael Brown, was shot to death by a white police officer.
Original reporting: Texarkana Gazette — read the source article.
