Today in History....August 15

On this day in …


* 1057, Macbeth, King of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain

* 1914, the Panama Canal opened to traffic

* 1935, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska

* 1944, during World War II, Allied forces landed in southern France in Operation Dragoon

* 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced to his subjects in a pre-recorded radio address that Japan had accepted terms of surrender for ending World War II

* 1947, India became independent after some 200 years of British rule

* 1948, the Republic of Korea was proclaimed

* 1971, President Richard Nixon announced a 90-day freeze on wages, prices and rents

* 1997, the Justice Department decided against prosecuting senior FBI officials in connection with an alleged cover-up that followed the deadly 1992 Ruby Ridge siege in Idaho

* 2002, President George W. Bush, using Mount Rushmore as a dramatic backdrop, pressed Congress to give him a flexible, fast-moving homeland security department. ALSO: Some 600 family members of 9-11 victims filed a trillion-dollar federal lawsuit against Saudi officials, banks and charities, charging they had financed Osama bin Laden's network and the attacks on New York and Washington

* 2006, Israel began withdrawing its forces from southern Lebanon