Men Who Made History…TODAY

1819        Aug 23, Oliver Hazard Perry, naval hero, died on his 34th birthday.1972        Aug 23, The Republican National Convention, meeting in Miami Beach, Fla., nominated Vice President Spiro T. Agnew for a second term.1995        Aug 23, During a memorial service at Fort Myer, Virginia, President Clinton eulogized three US diplomats killed in a road accident near Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and vowed to carry on the struggle for peace in the Balkans.1998        Aug 23, Russia’s Pres. Yeltsin dismissed the government. He fired PM Kiriyenko (b.1962) and replaced him with Viktor Chernomyrdin the Soviet-style leader he’d fired five months earlier. The move was said to have been orchestrated by Boris Berezovsky, a wealthy financier.2003        Aug 23, Michael Kijana Wamalwa (58), Kenya’s 8th Vice President, died of an undisclosed illness after several months of treatment in a hospital near London. 2004        Aug 23, President Bush criticized a commercial that had accused Democrat John Kerry of inflating his own Vietnam War record, more than a week after the ad stopped running, and said broadcast attacks by outside groups had no place in the race for the White House. 2005        Aug 23, President Bush said he understood the anguish of war protester Cindy Sheehan, but said fulfilling demands like hers for withdrawal from Iraq would weaken the US.2008        Aug 23, Democrats coalesced around Barack Obama’s selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden (b.1942) as his running mate while Republicans quickly seized on the Delaware senator’s past criticism of the presidential candidate’s inexperience.2009        Aug 23, Afghan former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, President Karzai’s main challenger, said he had evidence last week’s election had been widely rigged by the incumbent and that he had lodged more than 100 complaints. The Election Complaints Commission (ECC) said it had received 225 complaints of which 35 had been labeled a priority. An American service member died in an insurgent attack. Two Estonian soldiers were killed after their unit stumbled on a roadside bomb in southern Helmand province. 2011        Aug 23, Russian investigators arrested Lt. Col. Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, a retired police officer, on suspicion of organizing the 2006 killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building. 2014        Aug 23, Niger’s agriculture minister, Abdou Labo, was arrested on suspicion of involvement in a baby-trafficking network. 17 people, including his wife and the spouses of other politicians, were arrested in June as part of a police investigation.