August 19th

August 19 is the 232nd day of the year.  There are 134 days remaining until the end of the year.

1775 A rain of earwigs falls over Stroud, England.

1791 Almanackist Benjamin Banneker, African-American astronomer, clockmaker, and publisher, sent a copy of his just-published almanac to Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, quoting Jefferson's own words on slavery back at him, and presenting an appeal on behalf of African-Americans' "humiliating condition (slavery) ...".

1839 Details of Louis Daguerre's 1st practical photographic process are released in Paris. Unfortunately, he is the model. Happily, he doesn’t have an iPhone!

1934 The first All-American Soap Box Derby is held in Dayton, Ohio.

1951 Bill Veeck (St. Louis Browns) sends Eddie Gaedel, a 3'7" midget, to pinch-hit

1960 Cold War: in Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.

1993 Actress Kim Basinger weds actor Alec Baldwin. And how’s that work out, kids?

1995 After 5 days Shannon Faulkner quits as 1st woman at the Citadel— she couldn’t get laid even after offering to pay

2010 Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, with the last of the United States brigade combat teams crossing the border to Kuwait.

1871 Orville Wright, maybe gay US bicycle mechanic/aviation pioneer 

1915 Ringgold “Ring” Lardner Jr, maybe gay US journalist/screenwriter/blacklisted during the Red scare 

1919 Malcolm Forbes, bisexual US publisher of Forbes Magazine/motorcyclist 

1934 Renee Richards [nee, Richard Raskin], transgender US tennis player/opthalmologist  

1940 Johnny Nash, maybe gay US singer/I can See Clearly Now 

1955 Peter Gallagher, US actor 

1957 [Edgar Raymond] Darby Hinton, US actor 

1957 Martin Donovan [Smith], US actor 

1961 Tony Longo, maybe gay US actor/weight loser 

1963 John Stamos, US actor 

1963 Marcos Palmeira, Brazilian actor 

1965 Rubens Caribe, Brazilian actor 

1969 Torkel Petersson, maybe gay Swedish actor 

1977 [Daniel] Callum Blue, English actor 

1980 Darius Campbell-Danesh, Scottish singer 

1936 Federico Garcia Lorca, gay Spanish poet/composer/Salvador Dali's squeeze, upsets the wrong person at the wrong time and place.

1994 Linus Pauling, US chemist/Nobel prize (Vitamin C advocate), discovers the limits of massive doses of ascorbic acid

2009 Don Hewitt, television news producer/director/creator of 60 Minutes , runs out of time