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Almanac for Aug. 20, 2026

Today is Thursday, Aug. 20, the 232nd day of 2026. There are 133 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 20, 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization movement. Also on this date: In 1858, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was first published in the "Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society." In 1862, the New York Tribune published an open letter by editor Horace Greeley calling on President Abraham Lincoln to take more aggressive measures to free enslaved people and end the ...

A foreseeable and dire munitions crisis

During the 1979-1980 hostage crisis, a defiant Iran starkly demonstrated the limits of American power. Forty-five years later, it is doing the same thing, although in vastly different circumstances. Back then, when the post-Vietnam military was at a low ebb, we didn't strike Iran, and a ...

Almanac for Aug. 19, 2026

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 19, the 231st day of 2026. There are 134 days left in the year. Today in History: On Aug. 19, 2010, the last American combat brigade exited Iraq, seven years and five months after a U.S.-led invasion marked the beginning of the Iraq War. Also on this date: In 1692, four men and one woman were hanged after being convicted of witchcraft at Salem in the Province of Massachusetts Bay; the story of one of the men, John Proctor, inspired Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible." In 1812, the USS Constitution defeated the British frigate HMS Guerriere off Nova ...

A special golden anniversary

Golden anniversaries used to be special celebrations in the days when people got married and stayed married. This year marks the golden anniversary, not of a married couple, but of an organization that invests in the lives of people whom politicians largely ignore. It’s called Prison ...

Trump Promised to Be a Dictator. Now We Know Which One

It was already one of the most clownish (if sinister) moments in the Trump administration — the Department of Justice actually brought criminal charges against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn for sabotaging the president's big, beautiful reflecting pool. It then dropped them for legal ...

Almanac for Aug. 18, 2026

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 18, the 230th day of 2026. There are 135 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing American women's right to vote, was ratified as Tennessee became the 36th state to approve it. Also on this date: In 1590, John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony (in present-day North Carolina), returned to Roanoke after nearly three years abroad only to find the settlement deserted; the fate of the "Lost Colony" remains a mystery. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issued his Proclamation ...