August 19th

Octavian, later known as Augustus, compels the Roman Senate to elect him Consul.

A federal grand jury indicted retired baseball player Roger Clemens for allegedly lying to Congress about steroid use. (Clemens' trial this year ended in a mistrial.).

A Texas jury found pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. liable for the death of a man who'd taken the once-popular painkiller Vioxx.

The Internet search engine Google went public.

U.N. special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello was one of 22 killed when a suicide car bomb struck the UN's Baghdad headquarters.

A judge sentenced former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker to four years' probation for his Whitewater crimes.

President Bill Clinton halted the nation's three-decade open-door policy for Cuban refugees.

Conservative members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union attempt to depose Mikhail Gorbachev in a coup d'état.

Iran-Iraq begin a cease-fire in their 8-year-old war (11 PM EDT).

A fire at the Rex Cinema in Abadan, Iran, kills over 400 people. The incident which is considered to be a run-up to the Iranian Revolution occurred during the screening of The Deers, a film by Iranian director Masoud Kimiai. It is thought that 4 extremists locked the gates of the theater and set it on fire. Many people at the time believed that the fire was started by SAVAK, the Iranian intelligence agency.

Comedian Groucho Marx died in Los Angeles at age 86.

President Gerald R. Ford won the Republican presidential nomination at the party's national convention in Kansas City.

Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis began three days of recording sessions that yielded the album 'Bitches Brew.'.

World’s First Geostationary Satellite is Launched. Syncom 3, a communications satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida. A geostationary satellite is a manmade object that follows the Earth’s rotation around its axis. Because of this, it looks like it is not moving in the sky for observers on Earth. Like all geostationary satellites, Syncom 3 was placed in orbit about 22,00 miles from Earth, above the Equator and near the International Date Line. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics were broadcast to the United States with the help of this satellite.

A tribunal in Moscow convicted American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers of espionage.

WWII: Over 4,000 Canadian and British soldiers killed, wounded or captured raiding Dieppe, France.

Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca was shot by Franco's soldiers during the Spanish Civil War.

Germans voted to make Adolf Hitler Fuhrer.

The comedy 'Amos 'n' Andy' made its network radio debut on NBC.

Afghanistan Gains Independence From the United Kingdom. The Central Asian country came under British control in 1859, The country was considered to be a buffer for the British trade in opium and as a frontier to protect their interests in India. Despite trying several times to consolidate their rule over Afghanistan, the Afghan people remained hostile to British control and in 1919, King Amanullah declared Afghanistan to be independent from Britain’s protection. The declaration launched a war called the Third Anglo-Afghan War, which ended with the signing of the Rawalpindi Treaty on this day. The treaty granted Afghanistan independence from the British.

Details of Louis Daguerre's 1st practical photographic process are released in Paris.

The U.S. frigate Constitution, Old Ironsides, defeated the British ship Guerriere during the War of 1812.