This day in history

[August 23, 2011]  (AP)  Today is Tuesday, Aug. 23, the 235th day of 2011. There are 130 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On Aug. 23, 1775, Britain's King George III proclaimed the American colonies to be in a state of "open and avowed rebellion."

On this date:

In 1305, Scottish rebel leader Sir William Wallace was executed by the English for treason.

In 1754, France's King Louis XVI was born at Versailles (vehr-SY').

In 1914, Japan declared war against Germany in World War I.

In 1926, silent film star Rudolph Valentino died in New York at age 31.

In 1927, amid protests, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Boston for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery.

In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in Moscow.

In 1944, Romanian prime minister Ion Antonescu was dismissed by King Michael, paving the way for Romania to abandon the Axis in favor of the Allies.

In 1960, Broadway librettist Oscar Hammerstein (HAM'-ur-STYN') II, 65, died in Doylestown, Pa.

In 1973, a bank robbery-turned-hostage-taking began in Stockholm, Sweden; the four hostages ended up empathizing with their captors, a psychological condition now referred to as "Stockholm Syndrome."

In 1989, in a case that inflamed racial tensions in New York, Yusuf Hawkins, a 16-year-old black youth, was shot dead after he and his friends were confronted by a group of white youths in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.

Ten years ago: Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., interviewed by Connie Chung on ABC, denied any involvement in the disappearance of Washington intern Chandra Levy. (Ingmar Guandique, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was convicted in Nov. 2010 of murdering Levy, and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.) Thierry Devaux, a Frenchman using a motor-driven parachute, was rescued and arrested after becoming snagged on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. NATO soldiers streamed into Macedonia as part of a mission to help end six months of ethnic hostilities by collecting and destroying rebel weapons.

Five years ago: A previously unknown militant group released the first video of two Fox News journalists who'd been kidnapped in Gaza. (Reporter Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig were later freed.) The Citadel released the results of a survey in which almost 20 percent of female cadets reported being sexually assaulted since enrolling at the South Carolina military college. Jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson died in Ventura, Calif., at age 78.

One year ago: A dismissed policeman armed with an automatic rifle seized a bus in the Philippine capital with 25 people on board, mostly Hong Kong tourists; the gunman released nine of the hostages and demanded his job back to free the rest. (The hijacking lasted 11 hours before the gunman opened fire on his hostages; a Manila SWAT team then killed the hostage-taker, but not before eight tourists also died.) A jury in Goldsboro, N.C., convicted former Marine Cesar Laurean of first-degree murder in the death of a pregnant colleague, Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach. (Laurean was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.) Tiger Woods and his wife, Elin Nordegren, officially divorced.

Today's birthdays: Actress Vera Miles is 81. Political satirist Mark Russell is 79. Actress Barbara Eden is 77. Pro Football Hall of Famer Sonny Jurgensen is 77. Actor Richard Sanders is 71. Ballet dancer Patricia McBride is 69. Former Surgeon General Antonia Novello is 67. Pro Football Hall of Famer Rayfield Wright is 66. Country singer Rex Allen Jr. is 64. Singer Linda Thompson is 64. Actress Shelley Long is 62. Actor-singer Rick Springfield is 62. Country singer-musician Woody Paul (Riders in the Sky) is 62. Queen Noor of Jordan is 60. Actor-producer Mark Hudson is 60. MLB All-Star pitcher Mike Boddicker is 54. Rock musician Dean DeLeo (Army of Anyone; Stone Temple Pilots) is 50. Tejano singer Emilio Navaira (nah-VY'-rah) is 49. Country musician Ira Dean (Trick Pony) is 42. Actor Jay Mohr is 41. Actor Ray Park is 37. Actor Scott Caan is 35. Country singer Shelly Fairchild is 34. Figure skater Nicole Bobek is 34. Rock singer Julian Casablancas (The Strokes) is 33. NBA player Kobe Bryant is 33. Actress Kimberly Matula is 23.

Thought for today: "All life is a concatenation of ephemeralities." -- Alfred E. Kahn, American economist (1917-2010)

[Associated Press]

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