August 19
1812 - "Old Ironsides" (the USS Constitution) won a battle against the British frigate Guerriere east of Nova Scotia.
1848 - The discovery of gold in California was reported by the New York Herald.
1856 - Gail Borden received a patent for his process of condensing milk by vacuum.
1909 - The first car race to be run on brick occurred at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
1917 - Team managers John McGraw and Christy Matthewson were arrested for breaking New York City's blue laws. The crime was their teams were playing baseball on Sunday.
1919 - Afghanistan gained independence from Britain.
1929 - "Amos and Andy," the radio comedy program, made its debut on NBC starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll.
1934 - Adolf Hitler was approved for sole executive power in Germany as Fuehrer.
1940 - The new Civil Aeronautics Administration awarded honorary license #1 to Orville Wright.
1942 - About 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France. They suffered about 50 percent casualties.
1960 - Francis Gary Powers, an American U-2 pilot, was convicted of espionage in Moscow.
1960 - Two dogs were launched in a satellite into Earth's orbit by the Soviet Union.
1962 - Homero Blancas shot a 55 at the Premier Invitational Golf Tournament held in Longview, TX. It was the lowest score in U.S. competitive golf history.
1974 - During an anti-American protest in Nicosia, Cyprus, U.S. Ambassador Rodger P. Davies was fatally wounded by a bullet while in the American embassy.
1981 - Two Libyan SU-22s were shot down by two U.S. Navy F-14 fighters in the Gulf of Sidra.
1991 - Soviet hard-liners announced that President Mikhail Gorbachev had been removed from power. Gorbachev returned to power two days later.
1998 - The first piece of the 351 foot bronze statue of Christopher Columbus arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
1999 - Lorne Michaels received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1999 - In Belgrade, thousands of Serbs attended a rally to demand the resignation of Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic.
2004 - Google Inc. stock began selling on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The initial price was set at $85 and ended the day at $100.34 with more than 22 million shares traded.
2010 - In Iraq, the last American combat brigage exited more than seven after the U.S.-led invasion began.
2016 - A federal judge ordered Hillary Clinton to answer questions from the watchdog group Judicial Watch in writing about her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
2020 - Apple Inc. became the first company to be valued at over $2 trillion.
