On This Day August 10

1994
First woman president of the American Bar Association: Roberta Cooper Ramo is elected to the 375,000-member male-dominated organization.

1985
A Soviet nuclear-powered submarine's reactor explodes in a Russian shipyard. Ten crewmen were killed and radioactive material was spewed over several square miles.

1977
Son of Sam: David Berkowitz is arrested in New York. He had killed at least six people and wounded seven others, claiming he was acting under orders of his neighbor's dog..

1966
First U.S. moon satellite: Lunar Orbiter I is launched. It successfully orbited the moon 526 times before intentionally striking the moon's surface.

1966
$2 bill: The U.S. Treasury Department discontinues printing the bill due to lack of demand.

1960
First object successfully recovered from orbit: The U.S. Earth satellite Discoverer XIII is launched. The following day its 350-pound payload was ejected and recovered.

1927
Mt. Rushmore: The memorial is dedicated. It was completed in 1941.

1846
Smithsonian Institution: Congressional Act establishing the "nation's attic" is signed into law by Pres. James Polk as per the will of James Smithson. Smithson never visited the U.S.

1959
Rosanna Arquette, American actress. Film: Desperately Seeking Susan (1985).

1947
Ian Anderson, British singer, with Jethro Tull, Aqualung (1971) and Thick as a Brick (1972).

1928
Jimmy Dean (Seth Ward), American Grammy-winning country singer, sausage maker. Music: Big Bad John (1961, #1).

1913 d. 1994
Noah Beery Jr., American actor. TV: The Rockford Files (1974-1980, Jim's father).

1899 d. 1979
Jack Haley, American comedian, actor. Film: The Wizard of Oz (1939, Tin Man).

1889 d. 1967
Charles B. Darrow, American inventor, creator of the game Monopoly (1933). He created his game by copying the rules of a game played by Quakers at the time. Parker Brothers originally rejected the game, citing 52 fundamental errors. Now published in 23 languages and a Braille version, more than 200,000,000 games have been sold.

1887 d. 1951
Ed Leedskalnin, Latvian sculptor. He built Homestead, Florida's Coral Castle, using what he claimed was the lost secretes of the Egyptian pyramid builders. Billy Idol filmed the video Sweet Sixteen in Coral Castle. The song was inspired by Ed's unrequited love for 16-year-old Agnes Scuffs, for whom Ed built the castle.

1882 d. 1954
William Van Allen, American architect, skyscraper pioneer, designed the Chrysler building of New York. At the time of its completion in 1929 it was the world's tallest building.

1874 d. 1933
James Forman Sloan, American jockey, the leading race horse jockey of the late 1800s. He introduced the practices of riding high on the horse and hunching down to reduce wind resistance.

1874 d. 1964
Herbert Clark Hoover, 31st U.S. President (1929-33). He was the first Quaker to be president and the first president born west of the Mississippi.

1849 d. 1919
Horace Fletcher, American dietician. He founded "Fletcherism," the belief that each bite of food must be chewed 32 times.

1821 d. 1905
Jay Cooke, American banker, "Financier of the Civil War." He sold over $2.5 billion in Union bonds during the war. The collapse of his bank led to the Panic of 1873.

70 A.D.
Second Temple of Jerusalem: The temple is destroyed by Roman legions during the siege of Jerusalem.

1945 b. 1882
Robert Hutchings Goddard, American physicist, rocket pioneer, "father of the space age." He launched the first liquid fuel rocket (1926).

1885 b. 1810
James Wilson Marshall, American pioneer. He started the California Gold Rush when he discovered gold at Sutter's Mill (1848).

August 10

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