历史上的今天:08月12日

Today's Highlight in History:
On August 12th, 1960, the first balloon satellite -- the "Echo One" -- was launched by the United States from Cape¹ Canaveral.
On this date:
In 1851, Isaac Singer was granted a patent on his sewing machine.

In 1867, President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach² him as he defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

In 1898, the peace protocol³ ending the Spanish-American War was signed.

In 1898, Hawaii was formally annexed⁴ to the United States.

In 1944, Joseph P. Kennedy Junior, eldest⁵ son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was killed with his co-pilot when their explosives-laden Navy plane blew up over England.

In 1953, the Soviet⁶ Union conducted a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.

In 1972, the last American combat ground troops left Vietnam.

In 1985, the world's worst single-aircraft disaster occurred as a crippled Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 on a domestic flight crashed into a mountain, killing⁷ 520 people.

In 1994, Woodstock '94 opened in Saugerties, New York.

In 1998, Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion as restitution⁸ to Holocaust⁹ survivors¹⁰ to settle claims for their assets.

Ten years ago: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sought to tie any withdrawal¹¹ of his troops from Kuwait to an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Air Force Staff Sergeant¹² John Campisi of West Covina, California, died after being hit by a military truck in Saudi Arabia, becoming the first US casualty of the Persian Gulf¹³ crisis.

Five years ago: In a methodical, daylong procession, Republican presidential candidates courted Ross Perot's followers¹⁴ at a United We Stand America conference in Dallas.

One year ago: Los Angeles County prosecutors¹⁵ charged white supremacist Buford O. Furrow¹⁶ with murder and five counts of attempted murder, all filed as hate crimes, in the wounding of five people at a Jewish community center and the shooting death of a Filipino-American mail carrier. (Federal prosecutors already had charged Furrow in the postman's slaying¹⁷.)