August 18th

Today's Highlight in History:
On August 18th, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed the right of all American women to vote.

On this date:
In 1227, the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan died.

In 1587, Virginia Dare became the first child of English parents to be born on American soil, on what is now Roanoke Island, North Carolina.

In 1846, US forces led by General Stephen W. Kearney captured Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In 1894, Congress established the Bureau of Immigration.

In 1914, President Wilson issued his "Proclamation of Neutrality," aimed at keeping the United States out of World War One.

In 1938, President Roosevelt dedicated the Thousand Islands Bridge connecting the United States and Canada.

In 1963, James Meredith became the first black to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

In 1983, Hurricane "Alicia" slammed into the Texas coast, leaving 22 dead and causing more than a billion dollars' worth of damage.

In 1991, Soviet hard-liners launched a coup aimed at toppling President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who was vacationing in the Crimea. (The coup collapsed three days later.)

In 1997, Beth Ann Hogan became the first coed in the Virginia Military Institute's 158-year history.

Ten years ago: A US frigate fired warning shots across the bow of an Iraqi oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman -- apparently the first shots fired by the United States in the Persian Gulf crisis.

Five years ago: Shannon Faulkner, who'd won a two-and-a-half-year legal battle to become the first female cadet at The Citadel, quit the South Carolina military college after less than a week, most of it spent in the infirmary.

One year ago: A day after a deadly earthquake struck western Turkey, survivors denounced the rescue effort as sluggish and disorganized. (The death toll eventually topped 17,000.)

"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common."

-- John Locke, English philosopher (1632-1704).