On This Day August 4

1993
Suicide Doctor - Death #18: Dr. Jack Kevorkian assists in the death of 30-year-old Lou Gehrig's disease victim, Thomas Hyde.

1993
Rodney King beating: L.A. police officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell are sentenced to 2½ years in prison for their part in the 1992 beating of Rodney King.

1964
Mississippi Burning: Three civil rights workers are found murdered in Mississippi. The film Mississippi Burning (1988) is loosely based on these murders and ensuing FBI investigation.

1944
World War II - Anne Frank and seven other Jews are found by the Nazis and taken to concentration camps. Her diary described their previous 756 days of hiding.

1936
Jesse Owens: The black American track star upsets Hitler's theory of Aryan superiority by winning his second gold medal, for the long jump. He went on to win a total of four.

1916
U.S. signs treaty to purchase the Virgin Islands from Denmark for the sum of $25,000,000. It was ratified the following year.

1914
World War I: The U.S. declares its neutrality, offering the following day to mediate.

1892
Lizzie Borden's parents are axed to death. Lizzie was tried and acquitted of the crime.

1821
First issue of the Saturday Evening Post. In 1898 the current owner falsely claimed it was a continuation of Ben Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette which was published from 1728-1815.

1790
Revenue cutter service is founded, later becoming the U.S. Coast Guard (1915).

1755
Nicolas-Jacques Conté, French painter, inventor of the modern pencil. He developed the process of combining powdered graphite with clay and pressing it between two wooden halves.

1693
Champagne: Dom Pérignon is generally credited with inventing the sparkling wine on this date. However, he actually just improved the process. He was originally tasked with the job of removing the bubbles, since they had a tendency to cause the bottles to burst. This could create a hazardous and costly chain reaction when other bottles broke due to the shock caused by the initial breakage.

1971
Jeff Gordon, American race car driver, four-time champion of the NASCAR Winston/NEXTEL Cup (1995, 1997, 1998, and 2001) Series.

1962
Roger Clemens, American baseball pitcher, winner of seven Cy Young Awards (two more than any other pitcher).

1955
Billy Bob Thornton (William Robert Thornton), American Oscar-winning screenwriter, actor. Film: One False Move (1992) and Sling Blade (1996, which he wrote, directed, and starred in).

1952 d. 1974
Bobby Buntrock, American actor. TV: Hazel (1961-66, Harold Baxter). He died in a car accident on the same bridge that his mother died on in a car crash a year earlier.

1944
Thomas Magnum, character on the TV show Magnum P.I. played by Tom Selleck.

1903 d. 1966
Helen Kane (Helen Schroeder), American actress, singer. Broadway: Good Boy (1929, giving her famous squeaky-voiced "Boop-boop-a-doop" rendition of I Wanna Be Loved by You).

1901 d. 1971
Louis Armstrong, American jazz musician, "Satchmo," the first and greatest solo jazz musician.

1900 d. 2002
Elizabeth, Queen of England (1936-52), widow King George VI, and mother of Queen Elizabeth II.

1861 d. 1947
Jesse Wilford Reno, American inventor. He patented the first escalator (1892).

1521 d. 1590
Urban VII, Italian religious leader, 228th Pope (Sept. 1590). He died 12 days after being elected pope.

1999 b. 1913
Victor Mature, American actor, starring in many Biblical epics. He was billed as "A beautiful hunk of man." Film: One Million B.C. (1940, Tumak the caveman), Samson and Delilah (1949, Samson) and After the Fox. Quote: "Actually, I am a golfer. That is my real occupation. I never was an actor; ask anybody, particularly the critics." (1966).

1995 b. 1905
J. Howard Marshall (Jeremiah Howard Marshall II), American oil billionaire. At age 89, he married 26-year-old Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole Smith.

1977 b. 1889
Edgar Douglas Adrian, 1st Baron of Cambridge, English physiologist, shared the 1932 Nobel Prize in medicine with Sir Charles Sherrington for work in the field of nerve impulses.

1938 b. 1889
Pearl White, American actress, starred in the movie serials The Perils of Pauline (1914-24). She was the most popular actress of her day.

1906 b. 1825
Daniel Wesson, American gun-maker, co-founder of Smith & Wesson (1857).

1905 b. 1843
Walther Flemming, German anatomist. He was the first to systematically observe and describe the behavior of chromosomes in the cell nucleus during normal cell division. He also coined the term mitosis (1882, the process of cell division).

1875 b. 1805
Hans Christian Andersen, Danish poet, novelist. Writings: The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Pea, The Ugly Duckling, The Red Shoes, and The Emperor's New Clothes.

1821 b. 1734
William Floyd, American politician, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

August 4

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