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• Today is Thursday, Aug. 15, the 227th day of 2013. There are 138 days left in the year.
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• Today's Highlight in History:
• On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York.
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• On this date:
• In 1057, Macbeth, King of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain.
• In 1483, the Sistine Chapel was consecrated by Pope Sixtus IV.
• In 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the island of Corsica.
• In 1812, the Battle of Fort Dearborn took place as Potawatomi warriors attacked a U.S. military garrison of about 100 people. (Most of the garrison was killed, while the remainder were taken prisoner.)
• In 1914, the Panama Canal opened to traffic.
• In 1935, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory.
• In 1945, in a radio address, Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced that his country had accepted terms of surrender for ending World War II.
• In 1947, India became independent after some 200 years of British rule.
• In 1961, as workers began constructing a Berlin Wall made of concrete, East German soldier Conrad Schumann leapt to freedom over a tangle of barbed wire.
• In 1971, President Richard Nixon announced a 90-day freeze on wages, prices and rents. Bahrain declared its independence from Britain.
• In 1974, a gunman attempted to shoot South Korean President Park Chung-hee during a speech; although Park was unhurt, his wife was struck and killed, along with a teenage girl. (The gunman was later executed.)
• In 1998, 29 people were killed by a car bomb that tore apart the center of Omagh (OH'-mah), Northern Ireland; a splinter group calling itself the Real IRA claimed responsibility.
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(Continued on page 30)
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