Moments in Time: Swim the English Channel
The History Channel
On Aug. 24, 1572, King Charles IX of France, influenced by his mother, Catherine de Medici, ordered the assassination of Huguenot Protestant leaders in Paris, which launched a widespread stream of murders resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Huguenots all across the country.
On Aug. 25, 1875, merchant navy captain Matthew Webb became the first known person to successfully swim the English Channel, in 21 hours and 45 minutes. Hailed as a national hero, a triumphal arch was erected in his honor in his hometown and The Daily Telegraph called him "probably the best-known and most popular man in the world."
On Aug. 26, 1873, the first free kindergarten in America was started by Susan Blow in Carondelet, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri.
On Aug. 27, 2007, Michael Vick, a star quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, pleaded guilty to a federal felony charge related to running a dogfighting ring. Four months later, he was sentenced to 23 months in federal prison.
On Aug. 28, 1963, acclaimed gospel singer Mahalia Jackson helped turn Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at the March on Washington into one of American history's most famous orations when she instructed him to "tell them about the dream, Martin" from behind the podium on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, prompting him to put aside his notes and improvise the entire next section of it.
On Aug. 29, 1982, Swedish-born actress and three-time Academy Award winner Ingrid Bergman died of cancer on her 67th birthday. Best known for her role as Ilsa Lund opposite Humphrey Bogart in "Casablanca," Bergman had stirred up an international scandal three decades earlier by bearing a son with Italian director Roberto Rossellini, to whom she wasn't then married.
On Aug. 30, 2023, West Point announced that an archaeologist had taken a second look at an 1828 time capsule, opened in an earlier livestream and believed to be empty, and discovered valuable coins and a medal under sediment at its bottom.
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