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Today's Highlight in History: On August 23rd, 1927, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Boston for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery. (Sacco and Vanzetti were vindicated in 1977 by Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis.) On this date: In 1754, France's King Louis the 16th was born at Versailles. In 1838, one of the first colleges for women, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, graduated its first students. In 1914, Japan declared war on Germany in World War One. In 1926, silent film star Rudolph Valentino died in New York at age 31. In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty. In 1944, Romanian prime minister Ion Antonescu was dismissed by King Michael, paving the way for Romania to abandon the Axis in favor of the Allies. In 1960, Broadway librettist Oscar Hammerstein II died in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. In 1972, the Republican national convention, meeting in Miami Beach, Florida, nominated Vice President Spiro T. Agnew for a second term. In 1979, Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York. In 1982, Lebanon's parliament elected Christian militia leader Bashir Gemayel president. (However, Gemayel was assassinated some three weeks later.) | 
