This Day In History

On August 29, 1960, the Fifth World Forestry Congress opened in Seattle, Washington. Nearly 2,000 participants gathered to consider how forests could supply timber while also protecting water, wildlife, grazing land, and places for outdoor recreation.

On August 28, 1864, the US Post Office Department created the Railway Mail Service. It revolutionized mail delivery for a century.

On August 27, 1894, the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act became law and established the nation’s first federal income-tax exemption for charitable, religious, and educational organizations. Although much of the law proved short-lived, its basic distinction between commercial profits and nonprofit work became a lasting part of the federal tax system.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire and now the capital of North Macedonia. Decades later, the teacher-turned-missionary would build a religious order devoted to caring for people facing poverty, illness, abandonment, and death.

Civil rights leader Whitney Moore Young Jr. was born on July 31, 1921, in Shelby County, Kentucky. He served as Executive Director of the National Urban League, helped organize the March on Washington, and advised several presidents.

On April 27, 1945, a boy named Frederick August Kittel Jr. was born in a two-room apartment in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. No one in that neighborhood could have guessed he would one day have a Broadway theater named after him. He would grow up to become August Wilson, one of the most celebrated playwrights in American history.

On April 5, 1856, Booker Taliaferro Washington was born into slavery in Hale’s Ford, Virginia. From those beginnings, he built a life centered on education, discipline, and practical progress in the years after the Civil War.

On March 25, 1931, civil rights leader, journalist, and suffragette Ida B. Wells died at the age of 68. Her life’s work—documenting injustice with facts and confronting violence with fearless reporting—left a detailed record of a nation struggling with race and equality.

Baseball legend Theodore Samuel Williams was born on August 30, 1918, in San Diego, California. One of the game’s all-time great hitters, he holds the record for career on-base percentage.

On August 30, 1934, the US Post Office issued its first Airmail Special Delivery stamp. Only in use for a short time, Airmail Special Delivery stamps paid the air postage and special delivery fee with a single stamp.

Civil Rights activist Roy Ottoway Wilkins was born on August 30, 1901, in St. Louis, Missouri. He was a leader in the Civil Rights movement and a major figure in the NAACP for over 20 years.

On August 30, 1984, the Space Shuttle Discovery made its first launch into space, two months later than initially planned.  It would go on to make more flights than any other shuttle in its fleet.