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Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: India gains independence
Today is Friday, Aug. 15, the 227th day of 2025. There are 138 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 15, 1947, India gained independence after nearly 200 years of British rule. Also on this date: In 1057, Macbeth, King of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain. In 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened as the SS Ancon crossed the just-completed waterway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. In 1935, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory. In 1961, as workers began constructing a Berlin Wall made of concrete, East German soldier Conrad Schumann leapt to freedom over a tangle of barbed wire. In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York; more than 460,000 people attended the three-day festival, which would become a watershed event in American music and culture. In 1989, F.W. de Klerk was sworn in as acting president of South Africa, one day after P.W. Botha resigned because of a power struggle within the National Party. In 1998, 29 people were killed by a car bomb that tore apart the center of Omagh, Northern Ireland; a splinter group calling itself the Real IRA claimed responsibility. In 2003, bouncing back from the largest blackout in U.S. history, cities from the Midwest to Manhattan restored power to tens of millions of people. In 2021, the Taliban regained control of the Afghan capital of Kabul after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country. Today's Birthdays: Actor Jim Dale is 90. Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is 87. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is 87. Author-journalist Linda Ellerbee is 81. Songwriter Jimmy Webb is 79. Actor Phyllis Smith is 76. Britain's Princess Anne is 75. Actor Tess Harper is 75. Actor Zeljko Ivanek is 68. Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio is 63. Film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is 62. Philanthropist Melinda French Gates is 61. Actor Debra Messing is 57. Actor Anthony Anderson is 55. Actor Ben Affleck is 53. Olympic gold medal beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings is 47. Rock singer Joe Jonas (The Jonas Brothers) is 36. Actor Jennifer Lawrence is 35.
UPI
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
On This Day, Aug. 15: U.S. ship opens Panama Canal
1 of 3 | The SS Ancon became the first ship to transit the newly built Panama Canal on August 15, 1914. File Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Archives Aug. 15 (UPI) -- On this date in history: In 1914, a U.S. ship sailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, officially opening the Panama Canal. In 1935, humorist Will Rogers and pilot Wiley Post were killed when their plane crashed in Alaska. In 1947, India gains independence from Britain after 200 years of rule. The Indian Independence Act also partitioned British India into modern-day India and Pakistan. In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, often described as a landmark counterculture event, opened on Max Yasgur's farm near Bethel, N.Y., drawing an estimated 400,000 people for three days of music. In 1985, South African President P.W. Botha, rejecting Western pleas to abolish apartheid, declared, "I am not prepared to lead white South Africans and other minority groups on a road to abdication and suicide." UPI File Photo In 1994, the notorious international terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal" was captured in Sudan. The next day he was extradited to France, where he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 2003, Libya admitted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that claimed 270 lives and agreed to pay reparations totaling $2.7 billion. In 2004, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez survived a referendum to oust him. File Photo by Monika Graff/UPI In 2007, an 8-magnitude earthquake struck 90 miles southeast of Lima, Peru, killing an estimated 500 people and injuring hundreds more. In 2013, Egyptian authorities said the death toll had surpassed 600 in violence that began with a crackdown on protesting supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi. In 2015, the North Korean government moved to its own time zone -- back 30 minutes -- going back to what it once was before the Japanese took control of the country more than a century ago. In 2021, Taliban militants took control of Afghanistan after storming Kabul and the presidential palace and causing President Ashraf Ghani to flee. The fall came as U.S. troops fully withdrew from the country after 20 years of war. In 2024, the Gaza Health Ministry announced nearly 40,000 Palestinians -- both militant and civilian -- had died since the start of the war with Israel in October 2023. File Photo by Mahmoud Zaki/UPI
