1302 – The weaver Peter de Coningk led a massacre of the Flemish oligarchs.

1642 – Montreal, Canada, was founded.

1643 – Queen Anne, the widow of Louis XIII, was granted sole and absolute power as regent by the Paris parliament, overriding the late king’s will.

1652 – In Rhode Island, a law was passed that made slavery illegal in North America. It was the first law of its kind.

1792 – Russian troops invaded Poland.

1798 – The first Secretary of the U.S. Navy was appointed. He was Benjamin Stoddert.

1802 – Great Britain declared war on Napoleon’s France.

1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed emperor by the French Senate.

1828 – Battle of Las Piedras ended the conflict between Uruguay and Brazil.

1896 – The U.S. Supreme court upheld the “separate but equal” policy in the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision. The ruling was overturned 58 years later with Brown vs. Board of Education.

1897 – A public reading of Bram Stoker’s new novel, “Dracula, or, The Un-dead,” was performed in London.

1904 – Brigand Raizuli kidnapped American Ion H. Perdicaris in Morocco.

1917 – The U.S. Congress passed the Selective Service act, which called up soldiers to fight in World War I.

1926 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while visiting a beach in Venice, CA. She reappeared a month later with the claim that she had been kidnapped.

1931 – Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara crashed his plane in the Pacific Ocean while trying to be the first to cross the ocean nonstop. He was picked up seven hours later by a passing ship.

1933 – The Tennessee Valley Authority was created.

1934 – The U.S. Congress approved an act, known as the “Lindberg Act,” that called for the death penalty in interstate kidnapping cases.

1942 – New York ended night baseball games for the duration of World War II.

1944 – Monte Cassino, Europe’s oldest Monastic house, was finally captured by the Allies in Italy.

1949 – Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America was incorporated

1951 – The United Nations moved its headquarters to New York City.

1953 – The first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound, Jacqueline Cochran, piloted an F-86 Sabrejet over Californiaat an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour.

1974 – India became the sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb.

1980 – Mt. Saint Helens erupted in Washington state. 57 people were killed and 3 billion in damage was done.

1983 – The U.S. Senate revised immigration laws and gave millions of illegal aliens legal status under an amnesty program.

1994 – Israel’s three decades of occupation in the Gaza Strip ended as Israeli troops completed their withdrawal and Palestinian authorities took over.

1998 – The U.S. federal government and 20 states filed a sweeping antitrust case against Microsoft Corp., saying the computer software company had a “choke hold” on competitors which denied consumer choices by controlling 90% of the software market.

1998 – U.S. federal officials arrested more than 130 people and seized $35 million. This was the end to an investigation of money laundering being done by a dozen Mexican banks and two drug-smuggling cartels.

2012 – Facebook Inc. held its initial public offering and began trading on the NASDAQ. The company was valued at $104 billion making it the largest valuation to date for a newly listed public company.

2014 – Russian President Putin signed a bill to absorb Crimea into the Russian Federation.

1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled for school integration in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. The ruling declared that racially segregated schools were inherently unequal.

May 17, 1954 – In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregation of public schools “solely on the basis of race” denies black children “equal educational opportunity” even though “physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may have been equal.

Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Thurgood Marshall had argued the case before the Court. He went on to become the first African American appointed to the Supreme Court.

source: history.com and youtube.com

In politics and governance, Douglass worked for the U.S’ diplomacy efforts abroad—particularly in the Caribbean. He was often in some leadership or ambassador role that made use of his speaking, diplomacy and writing abilities.

Taking different government postings worked for Douglass since they often weren’t dramatically different from each other.  He could also engage in public speaking when he felt. The one role that was very different from the others was the time he spent as U.S. Marshall.

It should also be noted that this was a time when Black people were put in civil service positions very often by a Republican controlled government. Black civil servants were met with mixed reactions from the Black community.

Many roles were vital to getting Black politicians in a position of power. This allowed them to impact policy to help in the betterment of Black life. However, there were roles that were perceived as placeholders or feel good roles for Republicans.

ROLE AS RECORDER OF DEEDS

His posting as Recorder of Deeds went through the Senate 47-8 on May 17, 1881. It was something of a departure from the more active positions he’d taken before. In some ways, it was similar to another posting he’d taken four years earlier as U.S. Marshall.

The nature Frederick Douglass’ role as Recorder of Deeds is documented, but not really discussed for two main reasons. It isn’t a role that heralds great deeds since tasks were similar to those of a county clerk. Also, Douglass had a tendency to stay at a post for a short period before being given another. This role put him in direct contact with those he wanted to help the most. Douglass would step down as Recorder of Deeds in 1886 to resume speaking full time.

SOURCE:
https://ordinaryphilosophy.com/2016/08/

1540 – Afghan chief Sher Khan defeated Mongul Emperor Humayun at Kanauj.

1630 – Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi saw the belts on Jupiter’s surface.

1681 – Louis XIV sent an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.

1756 – Britain declared war on France, beginning the French and Indian War.

1792 – The New York Stock Exchange was founded at 70 Wall Street by 24 brokers.

1814 – Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden. Norway’s constitution, which provided a limited monarchy, was signed.

1875 – The first Kentucky Derby was run at Louisville, KY.

1877 – The first telephone switchboard burglar alarm was installed by Edwin T. Holmes.

1881 – Frederick Douglass was appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, DC.

1926 – The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires was damaged by bombs that were believed set by sympathizers of Sacco and Vanzetti.

1932 – The U.S. Congress changed the name “Porto Rico” to “Puerto Rico.”

1939 – The first fashion to be shown on television was broadcast in New York from the Ritz-Carleton Hotel.

1940 – Germany occupied Brussels, Belgium and began the invasion of France.

1946 – U.S. President Truman seized control of the nation’s railroads, delaying a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen.

1948 – The Soviet Union recognized the new state of Israel.

1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled for school integration in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. The ruling declared that racially segregated schools were inherently unequal.

1956 – The first synthetic mica (synthamica) was offered for sale in Caldwell Township, NJ.

1973 – The U.S. Senate Watergate Committee began its hearings.

1975 – NBC TV bought the rights to show “Gone With the Wind.” The one time rights cost NBC $5,000,000.

1980 – Rioting erupted in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood after an all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie. Eight people were killed in the rioting.

1985 – Bobby Ewing died on the season finale of “Dallas” on CBS-TV. He returned the following season.

1987 – Eric ‘Sleepy’ Floyd of the Golden State Warriors set a playoff record for points in a single quarter with 29.

1987 – An Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S. Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors. Iraq and the United States called the attack a mistake.

1996 – U.S. President Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in. Megan’s Law was named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, who was raped and killed in 1994.

1997 – Rebel leader Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire.

1998 – New York Yankees pitcher David Wells became the 13th player in modern major league baseball history to throw a perfect game.

1999 – Eric Ford, a tabloid photographer, was sentenced to 6 months at a halfway house, 3 years probation and 150 hours of community service. The sentence stemmed from a charge that Ford had eavesdropped on a call between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and then sold a recording of the conversation.
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2000 – Thomas E. Blanton Jr. and David Luker surrendered to police in Birmingham, AL. The two former Ku Klux Klan members were arrested on charges from the bombing of a church in 1963 that killed four young black girls.

2000 – Austria, the U.S. and six other countries agreed on the broad outline of a plan that would compensate Nazi-Era forced labor.

2000 – It was announced that Terra Networks SA and Lycos would be merging with the new name to be Terra Lycos. Terra made the deal happen with the purchase of $12.5 billion in stock.

2001 – The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp based on Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip.

2002 – Legoland Deutschland opened in Günzburg, Germany.

2006 – The U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany was sunk about 24 miles off Pensacola Beach. It was the first vessel sunk under a Navy program to dispose of old warships by turning them into diving attractions. It was the largest man-made reef at the time of the sinking.

2007 – Trains crossed the border dividing North and South Korea for the first time since 1953.