Category: Today

On August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women’s suffrage.

Eighty-eight years later, Pakistan’s President, Pervez Musharaf resigned under threat of impeachment.

The next year, Rose Director Friedman, economist, wife of economist Milton Friedman, sister of economist Aaron Director and mother of economist David D. Friedman, died. With her husband she had written one of the most popular pro-liberty books of our time, Free to Choose. She had been born in late December, 1910, in Staryi Chortoryisk, in Ukraine, to the Director family, prominent Jewish residents.

With her husband she co-authored their memoirs, Milton and Rose D. Friedman, Two Lucky People, which appeared in 1998. Together they founded the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, with the aim of promoting the use of school vouchers and freedom of choice in education. She also helped produce the PBS television series, Free to Choose, and assisted her husband in writing his 1962 political philosophy book Capitalism and Freedom.

On August 17, 1786, American backwoods hero and politician, David Crockett, was born. Famous as a politician, he brought personal principle and honor and a “common sense” approach in representing Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives. He later served in the Texas Revolution, dying at the Battle of the Alamo.

Crockett grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling, which helped make him a legend in his own time. After being made a colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee, he was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821.

In 1825, Crockett was elected to the U.S. Congress, where he vehemently opposed many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, most notably the Indian Removal Act.

Crockett wrote a number of books, including a biography of Martin Van Buren.

On August 16, 1841, U.S. President John Tyler vetoed a bill to re-establish the Second Bank of the United States (pictured). Enraged Whig Party members — feeling betrayed by the WINO* Tyler — rioted outside the White House in history’s most violent demonstration on White House grounds.

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* “Whig In Name Only,” anachronistic joke term. A play on the contemporary initialisms “Republican in Name Only” (RINO) and “Democrat in Name Only” (DINO).

On August 15, 2012, a complex, high-powered radio transmission was sent from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico towards the constellation Sagittarius. The signal consisted of a digital stream of approximately 10,000 Twitter messages solicited for the purpose by the National Geographic Channel, bearing the hashtag “#ChasingUFOs” (a promotion for one of the channel’s TV series). The sponsor also included a series of video vignettes featuring verbal messages from various celebrities.

The transmission was sent on the 35th anniversary of the reception of a mysterious signal that was interpreted as an alphanumeric sequence, “6EQUJ5,” dubbed the “Wow!” signal, from the general direction of the star Tau Sagittarius. This signal was received by Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, and was noticed a few days after August 15, 1978, by astronomer Jerry R. Ehman.

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On a sad August 15 in 1971, President Richard Nixon removed the last vestiges of the once-great bulwark of capitalism, America’s adherence to the international gold standard, ending convertibility of the United States dollar into gold by foreign investors. The dollar has remained fiat money ever since, but did not succeed in retaining its previous value.

But then, the dollar under the previous quasi-gold, Bretton-Woods Agreement wasn’t stable either, which is why Nixon felt compelled to close the gold window.

On August 14, 1765, Sam Adams led the first rebel mob against enforcers of the Stamp Act in Britain’s American colonies.

On this day in 1980, Lech Wałęsa led strikes at the Gdańsk, Poland, shipyards.

On August 13, 1831, Nat Turner witnessed a solar eclipse, which he interpreted as a sign from God. Eight days later he and 70 other slaves killed approximately 55 whites in Southampton County, Virginia.