AUGUST 23RD

***

Today is Saturday, August 23, the 236th day of 2008.
There are 130 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

• On August 23, 1927, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Boston for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery. (Fifty years later, on this date in 1977, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis proclaimed that "any stigma and disgrace should be forever removed" from their names.)

On this date:

• In 1754, France's King Louis XVI was born at Versailles.
• In 1775, Britain's King George III proclaimed the American colonies in a state of "open and avowed rebellion."
• In 1858, "Ten Nights in a Bar-room," a play about the tragic consequences of consuming alcohol, opened in New York.
• 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 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 II died in Doylestown, Pa., at age 65.
• In 1973, a bank robbery-turned-hostage standoff began in Stockholm, Sweden; by the time the crisis ended, the four hostages had come to empathize with their captors, an occurrence now referred to as "Stockholm Syndrome."
• In 1982, Lebanon's parliament elected Christian militia leader Bashir Gemayel president. (However, Gemayel was assassinated some three weeks later.)

Ten years ago:

• Boris Yeltsin again dismissed the Russian government, replacing his 36-year-old prime minister, Sergei Kiriyenko, with the Soviet-style leader he'd fired five months earlier, Viktor Chernomyrdin.

Five years ago:

• Former priest John Geoghan, the convicted child molester whose prosecution sparked the sex abuse scandal that shook the Roman Catholic Church nationwide, died after another inmate attacked him in a Massachusetts prison.
• All-Star baseball player Bobby Bonds, slugger Barry Bonds' father, died at age 57.

One year ago:

• A report by top U.S. spy analysts concluded the Iraqi government was strained by rampant violence, deep sectarian differences among its political parties and stymied leadership.
• Nicole Richie spent 82 minutes in a Los Angeles County jail to complete a four-day sentence for driving under the influence of drugs.

Today's Birthdays:

• Movie director Robert Mulligan is 83.
• Actress Vera Miles is 78.
• Political satirist Mark Russell is 76.
• Actress Barbara Eden is 74.
• Actor Richard Sanders is 68.
• Ballet dancer Patricia McBride is 66.
• Former Surgeon General Antonia Novello is 64.
• Country singer Rex Allen Jr. is 61.
• Singer Linda Thompson is 61.
• Actress Shelley Long is 59.
• Actor-singer Rick Springfield is 59.
• Country singer-musician Woody Paul (Riders in the Sky) is 59.
• Queen Noor of Jordan is 57.
• Actor-producer Mark Hudson is 57.
• Rock musician Dean DeLeo (Army of Anyone and Stone Temple Pilots) is 47.
• Tejano singer Emilio Navaira is 46.
• Country musician Ira Dean (Trick Pony) is 39.
• Actor Jay Mohr is 38.
• Actor Scott Caan is 32.
• Country singer Shelly Fairchild is 31.
• Rock singer Julian Casablancas (The Strokes) is 30.
• Basketball player Kobe Bryant is 30.

Thought for Today:

"Friendship is honey — but don't eat it all."
Moroccan proverb.

"
Let's all be careful out there!"