Today is Friday, Aug. 19, the 232nd day of 2016. There are 134 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Aug. 19, 1991, Soviet hard-liners stunned the world by announcing that President Mikhail S. Gorbachev had been removed from power. (The coup attempt collapsed two days later.)
On this date:
In A.D. 14, Caesar Augustus, Rome's first emperor, died at age 76 after a reign lasting four decades; he was succeeded by his stepson Tiberius.
In 1812, the USS Constitution defeated the British frigate HMS Guerriere off Nova Scotia during the War of 1812, earning the nickname "Old Ironsides."
In 1814, during the War of 1812, British forces landed at Benedict, Maryland, with the objective of capturing Washington D.C.
In 1918, "Yip! Yip! Yaphank," a musical revue by Irving Berlin featuring Army recruits from Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York, opened on Broadway.
In 1934, a plebiscite in Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler.
In 1936, the first of a series of show trials orchestrated by Soviet leader Josef Stalin began in Moscow as 16 defendants faced charges of conspiring against the government (all were convicted and executed).
In 1942, during World War II, about 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a disastrous raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France, suffering more than 50-percent casualties.
In 1955, torrential rains caused by Hurricane Diane resulted in severe flooding in the northeastern U.S., claiming some 200 lives.
In 1964, The Beatles opened their first full-fledged U.S. tour as they performed at San Francisco's Cow Palace.
In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford won the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in Kansas City.
In 1980, 301 people aboard a Saudi Arabian L-1011 died as the jetliner made a fiery emergency return to the Riyadh airport.
In 1991, rioting erupted in the Brooklyn, New York, Crown Heights neighborhood after a black 7-year-old, Gavin Cato, was struck and killed by a Jewish driver from the ultra-Orthodox Lubavitch community; three hours later, a gang of blacks fatally stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum, a rabbinical student.
Ten years ago: Israeli commandos raided a Hezbollah stronghold deep in Lebanon. (Israel said the raid was launched to stop arms smuggling from Iran and Syria to the militant Shiite fighters; Lebanon called the operation a "flagrant violation" of a U.N. truce.)
Five years ago: Three men - Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley - who'd spent nearly two decades in prison for the nightmarish slayings of three Cub Scouts in Arkansas, went free after they agreed to a legal maneuver allowing them to maintain their innocence while acknowledging prosecutors had enough evidence against them. Danell Leyva beat two-time defending champion Jonathan Horton for his first title at the U.S. gymnastics championships in St. Paul, Minnesota.
One year ago: Longtime Subway pitchman Jared Fogle agreed in federal court in Indianapolis to plead guilty to allegations that he'd paid for sex acts with minors and received child pornography. (Fogle pleaded guilty in Nov. 2015 to one count each of distributing and receiving child porn and traveling to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a child, and was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison.) Islamic State militants beheaded 81-year-old Khaled al-Asaad, a leading Syrian antiquities scholar who'd spent most of his life looking after the ancient ruins of Palmyra
