Today in History: August 12, 520 die in Japan airlines crash

Today in History

Today is Saturday, Aug. 12, the 224th day of 2023. There are 141 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Aug. 12, 1953, the Soviet Union conducted a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.

On this date:

In 1867, President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him as he defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, with whom he had clashed over Reconstruction policies. (Johnson was acquitted by the Senate.)

In 1898, fighting in the Spanish-American War came to an end.

In 1909, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home to the Indianapolis 500, first opened.

In 1944, during World War II, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., eldest son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was killed with his co-pilot when their explosives-laden Navy plane blew up over England.

In 1960, the first balloon communications satellite — the Echo 1 — was launched by the United States from Cape Canaveral.

In 1964, author Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, died in Canterbury, Kent, England at age 56.

In 1978, Pope Paul VI, who had died Aug. 6 at age 80, was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica.

In 1981, IBM introduced its first personal computer, the model 5150, at a press conference in New York.

In 1985, the world’s worst single-aircraft disaster occurred as a crippled Japan Airlines Boeing 747 on a domestic flight crashed into a mountain, killing 520 people. Four survived.

In 1994, in baseball’s eighth work stoppage since 1972, players went on strike rather than allow team owners to limit their salaries.

In 2000, the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk and its 118-man crew were lost during naval exercises in the Barents Sea.

Ten years ago: James “Whitey” Bulger, the feared Boston mob boss who became one of the nation’s most-wanted fugitives, was convicted in a string of 11 killings and dozens of other gangland crimes, many of them committed while he was said to be an FBI informant. (Bulger was sentenced to life; he was fatally beaten at a West Virginia prison in 2018, hours after being transferred from a facility in Florida.) U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice would no longer demand mandatory minimum sentences for many low-level, non-violent non-repeat drug offenders, a major policy change.

Five years ago: Fewer than two dozen white nationalists showed up for a rally near the White House, where thousands of counter-demonstrators had gathered to send a message that racism is unwelcome. A year after the violence at a rally of white supremacists and other extremists in Charlottesville, Virginia, the mother of Heather Heyer, the woman killed while protesting against that rally, visited the site of the attack and said the country’s racial wounds had not healed. Brooks Koepka wins the PGA Championship in St. Louis; Tiger Woods finished second after a final-round score of 64. A NASA spacecraft, the Parker Solar Probe, lifted off on a mission intended to bring it within 3.8 million miles of the surface of the sun.

One year ago: Salman Rushdie, the author whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was attacked and stabbed in the neck by a man who rushed the stage as he was about to give a lecture in western New York. A vacationing Associated Press reporter witnessed the man confront Rushdie on stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin stabbing him 10 to 15 times as he was being introduced. The polio virus has been found in New York City’s wastewater in another sign that the disease, which hadn’t been seen in the U.S. in a decade, was quietly spreading among unvaccinated people. A representative for actor Anne Heche said she was on life support after suffering a brain injury in a fiery crash a week earlier and she wasn’t expected to survive. (Heche would be declared dead two days later.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor George Hamilton is 84. Actor Dana Ivey is 82. Actor Jennifer Warren is 82. Rock singer-musician Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) is 74. Actor Jim Beaver is 73. Singer Kid Creole (of Kid Creole and the Coconuts) is 73. Jazz musician Pat Metheny is 69. Actor Sam J. Jones is 69. Actor Bruce Greenwood is 67. Country singer Danny Shirley is 67. Pop musician Roy Hay (Culture Club) is 62. Rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot is 60. Actor Peter Krause (KROW’-zuh) is 58. Actor Brent Sexton is 56. International Tennis Hall of Famer Pete Sampras is 52. Actor-comedian Michael Ian Black is 52. Actor Yvette Nicole Brown is 52. Actor Rebecca Gayheart is 52. Actor Casey Affleck is 48. Actor Maggie Lawson is 43. Actor Dominique Swain is 43. Actor Leah Pipes is 35. Actor Lakeith Stanfield is 32. NBA All-Star Khris Middleton is 32. Actor Cara Delevingne (DEHL’-eh-veen) is 31. Actor Imani Hakim is 30.