1781-George Washington begins to move his troops south to fight Cornwallis
1896-Dial telephone patented
1912-Plant Quarantine Act goes into effect
1929-First airship flight around the Earth flying eastward completed
1940-British PM Churchill says of the Royal Air Force, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"
1940-Leon Trotsky, assassinated in Mexico City by Stalin agents, dies 8/21
1955-Hundreds killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco & Algeria
1960-USSR recovers 2 dogs; first living organisms to return from space
1968-650,000 Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia
1971-FBI begins covert investigation of journalist Daniel Schorr
1977-NASA launches Voyager 2 towards Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Neptune
1985-Israel ships 96 TOWs to Iran on behalf of the U.S.
1990-Iraq moves Western hostages to military installations (human shields)