Today's Highlight in History: On August 21st, 1940, exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky died in Mexico City from wounds inflicted by an assassin. On this date: In 1680, Pueblo Indians took possession of Santa Fe, New Mexico, after driving out the Spanish. In 1831, former slave Nat Turner led a violent insurrection in Virginia. (He was later executed.) In 1858, the famous debates between Senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas began. In 1878, the American Bar Association was founded in Saratoga, New York. In 1944, the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China opened talks at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington that helped pave the way for establishment of the United Nations. In 1945, President Truman ended the Lend-Lease program that had shipped some $50 billion in aid to America's allies during World War Two. In 1959, President Eisenhower signed an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. In 1983, Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Junior, ending a self-imposed exile in the United States, was shot dead moments after stepping off a plane at Manila International Airport. In 1983, the musical play La Cage Aux Folles opened on Broadway. In 1991, the hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian federation President Boris N. Yeltsin. |