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On This Day in History
August 4  1735 - Freedom of the press was established with an acquittal of John Peter Zenger. The writer of the New York Weekly Journal had been charged with seditious libel by the royal governor of New York. The jury said that "the truth is not libelous.
1790 - Christopher The Revenue Cutter Service was formed. This U.S. naval task force was the beginning of the U.S. Coast Guard. 1892 - Andrew and Abby Borden were axed to death in their home in Fall River, MA. Lizzie, Andrew's daughter, was accused of the killings but was later acquitted.
1914 - Britain declared war on Germany in World War I. The U.S. proclaimed its neutrality. 1922 - The death of Alexander Graham Bell, two days earlier, was recognized by AT&T and the Bell Systems by shutting down all of its switchboards and switching stations. The shutdown affected 13 million phones. 1944 - Nazi police raided a house in Amsterdam and arrested eight people. Anne Frank, a teenager at the time, was one of the people arrested. Her diary would be published after her death. 1954 - The uranium rush began in Saskatchewan, Canada. 1956 - William Herz became the first person to race a motorcycle over 200 miles per hour. He was clocked at 210 mph. 1958 - The first potato flake plant was completed in Grand Forks, ND.
1964 - The bodies of Michael H. Schwerner, James E. Chaney, and Andrew Goodman were found in an earthen dam in Mississippi. The three were civil rights workers. They had disappeared on June 21, 1964. 1972 - Arthur Bremer was found guilty of shooting George Wallace, the governor of Alabama. Bremer was sentenced to 63 years in prison. 1983 - New York Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield threw a baseball during warm-ups and accidentally killed a seagull. After the game, Toronto police arrested him for "causing unnecessary suffering to an animal." 1987 - The Fairness Doctrine was rescinded by the Federal Communications Commission. The doctrine had required that radio and TV stations present controversial issues in a balanced fashion. 1988 - U.S. Rep. Mario Biaggi of New York was sentenced to prison. The conviction included charges of extortion, tax evasion, and acceptance of bribes in relation to the Wedtech scandal. Biaggi was paroled in 1990. 1990 - The European Community imposed an embargo on oil from Iraq and Kuwait. This was done to protest the Iraqi invasion of the oil-rich Kuwait. 1992 - Wang Hongwen died of a liver ailment. Hongwen was a member of the radical "Gang of Four". The gang had terrorized China during the Cultural Revolution. 1993 - Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell, Los Angeles police officers were sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating Rodney King's civil rights 1996 - Josia Thugwane won a gold medal after finishing first in the marathon. He became the first black South African to win a gold medal. 1997 - Teamsters began a 15-day strike against UPS (United Parcel Service). The strikers eventually won an increase in full-time positions and defeated a proposed reorganization of the companies pension plan.  | 
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