Today is Tuesday, Aug. 16, the 229th day of 2016. There are 137 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Aug. 16, 1777, American forces won the Battle of Bennington in what was considered a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
On this date:
In 1812, Detroit fell to British and Indian forces in the War of 1812.
In 1858, a telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable.
In 1937, the American Federation of Radio Artists was chartered.
In 1948, baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York at age 53.
In 1954, Sports Illustrated was first published by Time Inc.
In 1956, Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
In 1962, The Beatles fired their original drummer, Pete Best, replacing him with Ringo Starr.
In 1976, the ABBA single "Dancing Queen" was released in Sweden.
In 1977, Elvis Presley died at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee, at age 42.
In 1978, James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., told a Capitol Hill hearing he did not commit the crime, saying he'd been set up by a mysterious man called "Raoul."
In 1987, 156 people were killed when Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed while trying to take off from Detroit; the sole survivor was 4-year-old Cecelia Cichan (SHEE'-an).
In 1991, Pope John Paul II began the first-ever papal visit to Hungary.
Ten years ago: A former American school teacher, John Mark Karr, was arrested in Thailand as a suspect in the 1996 slaying of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado. (Karr's confession that he had killed JonBenet was later discredited.) New York City officials released new tapes of hundreds of heart-wrenching phone calls from the World Trade Center on 9/11, along with other emergency transcripts. Alfredo Stroessner, the anti-communist general who'd ruled Paraguay for decades, died in Brasilia, Brazil, at age 93.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama, on a Midwest bus tour, implored Iowans during a stopover in Peosta to share ideas with him about how leaders could give an economic jolt to the nation's heartland. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, meeting in Paris, called for greater economic discipline and unity among European nations but declined to take immediate financial measures.
One year ago: Trigana Air Service Flight 257, an Indonesian ATR 42-300, crashed during a domestic flight; all 54 people on board were killed. Tens of thousands of Brazilians demonstrated their discontent with President Dilma Roussef.
